PA 

CI 55 
I-A&P6 






\ 1 1 

.*.j' :»w H 









1H 






^B 






■ 



.•w: 



■ 



■ 



IBS 






■ 



m 




n». PA 0,155 

Bnnk « AG P^ 
\&72> 



Ancient Classics for English Readers 

EDITED BY THE 

REV. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A. 



PLAUTUS AND TERENCE 



The Volumes published of this Series contain 

HOMER: THE ILIAD, by the Editor. 
HOMER: THE ODYSSEY, by the Same. 
HERODOTUS, by George C. Swayne, M.A. 
CAESAR, by Anthony Trollope. 
VIRGIL, by the Editor. 
HORACE, by Theodore Martin. 
^ESCHYLUS, by Reginald S. Copleston, M.A. 
XENOPHON, by Sir Alex. Grant, Bart., LL.D. 
CICERO, by the Editor. 
SOPHOCLES, by Clifton W. Collins, M.A. 

PLINY, by A. Church, M.A., and W. J. 
Brodribb, M.A. 

EURIPIDES, by William Bodham Donne. 

JUVENAL, by Edward Walford, M.A. 

ARISTOPHANES, by the Editor. 

The following Authors, by various Contributors, are 
in preparation : — 

PLAUTUS. 
TERENCE. 
TACITUS. 
LUCIAN. 

Others will follow. 

A Volume will be published Quarterly, price $1.00. 



PLAUTUS AND TERENCE 



R£C£iV£ D %£ 




*~ r ?lfclSt* 



BY THE 




REV. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A. 

AUTHOR OF 
•ETONIANA,' 'THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS,* ETC 



*5^^-a. 






HEADQUAR1 






&r 



£d sta"! 






PHILADELPHIA 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 

1873- 



-¥h> 






NOTE. 



These pages are much indebted to M. Guizot's volume 
entitled ' Menandre ; Etude Historique, &c. : ' also to 
Mr Dunlop's ' History of Eoman Literature.' 

~No attempt has been made to avoid roughness in 
the metre of the translations from Plautus and Ter- 
ence ; they can hardly be, in this respect, more 
irregular than the originals. 

W. L. C. 



By T^.nsfer 

MAR 15 1917 



HSHL 



CONTENTS. 



37 



HAP. PA.GE 

I. INTRODUCTORY — THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA, . 1 

II. MEN AND ER, 6 

III. PLAUTUS, 30 

IV. THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS : — .... 35 

THE THREE SILVER PIECES — THE BRAGGADOCIO — 
THE HAUNTED HOUSE — THE SHIPWRECK— THE CAP- 
TIVES — THE TWO MEN.ECHMI — AMPHITRYON — THE 
POT OF GOLD — THE TRICKSTER — THE YOUNG CAR- 
THAGINIAN — STICHUS, ETC. 

V. TERENCE, 95 

VI. THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE : — . . . .100 

THE MAID OF ANDROS — THE MOTHER-IN-LAW — THE 
SELF-TORMENTOR — THE ETHIOPIAN SLAVE — PHOR- 
MIO— THE BROTHERS. 



HEAD^ 

4/r 



PLAUTUS AND TERENCE. 

. -— - 




RECEIVED. 



&Z&&S& 



CHAPTEE 

INTRODUCTORY — THE ANCIENT COMIC DR 



The Comedies of Plautus and Terence are all that 
remains to us of the Eoman Comic Drama. It is 
• impossible to deal with the works of these writers, 
even in so slight a sketch as is contemplated in 
this volume, without some previous reference to the 
Greek originals from which they drew. For the, 
Eoman drama was, more than any other branch of 
EorriaTriiteFature, an inheritance from Greece; one of 
those notes of intellectual sovereignty which that mar- 
vellous people impressed upon their conquerors. The 
plays which, during five hundred years, from the days 
of the Scipios to those of Diocletian, amused a Eoman 
audience, had as little claim to be regarded as national 
productions as the last happy " adaptation " from the 
French which enjoys its brief run at an English 
theatre. 

But when we speak of Greek Comedy in its relation 
to the Eoman Drama, we must not form our idea of 

a. c. vol. xvi. a 



2 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 

Comedy from the plays of Aristophanes. It so happens 
that he stands before ns moderns as the sole surviving 
representative, in anything like discernible shape, of 
the comic drama at Athens. But his brilliant bur- 
lesques, with their keen political satire, their wealth of 
allusion, their mad extravagance of wit pushed even to 
buffoonery, have not much more in common with the 
plays of Plautus and Terence than with our modern 
parlour comedy as we have it from Mr Eobertson or 
Mr Byron. 

It has been said, when we parted from Aristophanes 
in a former volume of this series, that the glories of 
the old Athenian comedy had departed even before the 
great master in that school had put his last piece upon 
the stage. The long War was over. The great game 
of political life no longer presented the same intense 
excitement for the players. Men's lives and thoughts 
had begun to run in a narrower channel. As a poli- 
tical engine, there was no longer scope or occasion for 
the comic drama. And again, it was no longer easy 
to provide that costly and elaborate spectacle, — the 
numerous Chorus, highly trained and magnificently 
costumed, the machinery, the decorations, and the 
music, — which had delighted the eyes of Athenian • 
playgoers none the less because their intellect was keen 
enough to appreciate every witticism of the dialogue. 
It must be remembered that the expense of mounting 
a new play — and this must always have been consider- 
able where the theatres were on such a vast scale — was 
not a matter of speculation for author or manager, as 
with us, but a public charge undertaken in turn by 
the richer citizens ; and in which those who sought 



INTRODUCTORY. 3 

popularity, in order to advance their own political 
claims, vied with each other in the liberality of their 
expenditure. But at the close of the Peloponnesian 
War, many a noble family found itself impoverished 
by the long and terrible struggle, and the competition for 
public office had probably lost much of its charm. The 
stage followed the temper of the nation : it became less 
violently political, less extravagant and more sedate. 
Shall one venture to say that, like the nation, it lost 
something of its spirit 1 There was method, we must 
remember, in the mad licence of Aristophanes. Bitter 
as he was against his political opponents, it was an 
honest bitterness, and Cleon was his enemy because he 
believed him to be the enemy of the state. Socrates 
and Euripides were caricatured in the most unsparing 
fashion, for the amusement of the audience, and it was 
convenient for a professional jester to have two such 
well-known characters for his subject ; but he had 
always the apology that he really believed the teaching 
both of the philosopher and of the tragedian to have an 
evil influence upon public morality. There was a certain 
earnestness of purpose which gave respectability to the 
Aristophanic comedy in spite of its notorious offences 
against decency and good manners. 

The new style of Comedy, which was the original of 
that of Plautus and Terence, and which developed in 
later times into what we call Comedy now, did not per- 
haps f uHylTsta blish~ltself at Athens until nearly half a 
century after the death of Aristophanes. But the germ 
of it may be found in the later tragedies of Euripides. 
His heroes, and even his gods, arenas unlike as possible 
to the stately figures who move in the dramas of 



4 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 

iEschylus. He may call them by what names he 
pleases, but they are the personages of ordinary life. 
His drunken Hercules, in his beautiful drama (tragedy 
it can hardly be called) c Alcestis,' is as really comic as 
any character in Menander's plays. His unsparing 
satirist Aristophanes, in his ' Frogs, 1 when he intro- 
duces iEschylus and Euripides pleading before Bacchus 
their respective claims to the chair of tragedy, makes 
it one of the charges against the latter that he had low- 
ered the whole tone of tragedy : that whereas iEschylus 
had. left the ideal men of the drama " ^rand figures, 
four cubits high," his rival had reduced them to the 
petty level of everyday life — poor mean gossips of the 
market-place.* He allows Euripides indeed to plead 
in his defence that while the elder tragedian had given 
the audience nothing but high-flown sentiment and 
pompous language which was quite above their compre- 
hension, he had brought before them subjects of common 
household interest which all could understand and 
sympathise with. Both accusation and defence were 
true. Euripides had violated the severe simplicity of 
classic tragedy : but he had founded the domestic 
drama. 

The oligarchy of Rome would scarcely have permitted 
to the writers for the stage the licence of personal satire 
which the Athenian democracy not only bore with, 
but encouraged and delighted in. The risk which 
Aristophanes ran from the political partisans of Cleon 
would have been as nothing, compared with the perils 
of the comic dramatist who should have presumed to 

* Frogs, 953, 910. 



INTRODUCTORY. 5 

take the same liberty with any members of the " old 
great houses " of Rome. There had been at least one 
example of this in the fate of the poet ^aevius. We 
know very little, unfortunately, of what his dramas 
may have been like, for in his case we have remain- 
ing to us only the merest fragments. Eut he seems to 
have made an attempt to naturalise at Rome .the old 
Aristophanic style of comedy. A plebeian by birth, 
and probably a democratic reformer in politics, he had 
ventured upon some caricature of, or satire upon, the 
members of the great family who bore the name of 
Metellus, and who, as he complained, were always 
holding high office, fit or unfit. " It is fatality, not 
merit," he said, in a verse which has been preserved, 
" that has made the Metelli always consuls of Rome." 
The family or their friends retorted in a song which 
they chanted in the streets, the burden of which was, 
in effect, that " Naevius would find the Metelli a fatality 
to him." They very soon got him imprisoned, under 
the stringent libel laws of Rome : and, — since that was 
not enough to break his spirit — for he is said, after his 
release, to have written comedies which were equally 
distasteful in high quarters, — they succeeded at last in 
driving him into banishment. We hear of no more 
ambition on the part of Roman dramatists to assume 
the mantle of Aristophanes. They were content to be 
disciples in the later school of Menander, and to, take 
as the subject of comedy those general types of human 
nature under which no individual, high or low, was 
obliged to think that his own private weaknesses were 
attacked. 



CHAPTER IT. 



MEN AND ER. 



Menander was born at Athens, B.C. 342, of a family 
in which dramatic talent was in some degree heredi- 
tary, for his uncle Alexis had written comedies of 
some repute. It would appear that the faculties which 
make the successful comic writer commonly develop 
themselves at an early age ; for Menander, like his 
predecessor Aristophanes, won his first prize for comedy 
when he had barely reached manhood : and the same 
may be remarked as to the early and rapid success of 
some of our modern humorists.* But this youthful 
triumph was not followed, as might have been ex- 

* Of course he did not escape the charge of presumption 
and precocity from older candidates. He had to defend him- 
self on this occasion, like Pitt, from "the atrocious crime of 
being a young man." His defence, if we may trust the anec- 
ciotist, was by a parable. He brought upon the stage some 
new-born puppies, and had them thrown into a vessel of water. 
Blind and weak as they were, they instinctively tried to swim. 
"Athenians," said the young author, "you ask how, at my 
years, I can have the knowledge of life which is required in the 
dramatist : I ask you, under what master and in what school 
did these creatures learn to swim r i " 



MENANDER* 7 

pected, "by many such victories. He wrote more than a 
hundred comedies, and he only won the crown eight 
times. He was beaten in the contest, again and again, 
by his elder rival Philemon. Of this writer's plays 
nothing but the merest fragments remain to us, and we 
are thus unable to form any opinion as to the justice of 
the popular verdict. But critics who probably had the 
means of comparing the performances of both authors, 
do not hesitate to impute this preference of Philemon 
to Menander by the contemporary public to other 
causes than the comparative merits of the rivals. Quin- 
tilian goes so far as to say that the wonderful genius 
of Menander robbed all his contemporary dramatists 
of what might have been their reputation, and that 
" the blaze of his glory threw their merits into the 
shade." 

The honours which were refused to the poet by his 
fellow-citizens were liberally offered him by powerful 
patrons elsewhere. Demetrius " Poliorcetes " both pro- 
tected him when he occupied Athens and invited him 
to his court when he had seated himself upon the 
throne of Macedonia : and Ptolemy Lagus, when he 
founded his celebrated library at Alexandria, would 
gladly have imported the living dramatist as well as 
the manuscripts of his predecessors' works. Menander 
refused the invitation, though the king offered him 
u all the money in the world ; " but whether it was, 
as he declared, because he could not tear himself 
from a certain fair lady at Athens, or because he found 
that the invitation had been extended to his rival 
Philemon, may not be so certain. 

But it is said that the injustice of his fellow-citizens 



8 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 

broke the poet's heart. In his bitter mortification 
at one undeserved defeat (so goes the story) he threw 
himself into the sea off the wall at the Piraeus, and was 
drowned, while yet in the fulness of his powers — not 
much over fifty years of age. The authority is sus- 
picious, and the act is very little in accordance with 
the philosophy of Menander, as we gather it from the 
remains of his plays. A contemporary and probably a 
personal friend of Epicurus (they were born in the 
same year), he seems to have adopted heartily the easy- 
going optimism of that much-abused teacher. To take 
human life as it was ; to enjoy its pleasures, and to 
bear its evils cheerfully, as unavoidable : not to expect 
too much from others, as knowing one's own infir- 
mities ; to remember that life is short, and therefore 
to make the most of it and the best of it, not to 
waste it in vain regrets ; — this is the philosophy of 
Menander's comedies, which on these points are oc- 
casionally only too didactic. The whole secret of it lies, 
he says, in three words — ■" Thou art man." 

" The sum of all philosophy is this — 
Thou art a man ; than whom there breathes no creature 
More liable to sudden rise and fall." * 

This is the principle on which, by the mouth of his 
various characters, he is continually excusing human 
weaknesses, and protesting against the unreasonable- 
ness of mortal regrets and expectations : — 

" Being a mortal, ask not of the gods 
Escape from suffering ; ask but to endure ; 
For if thou seekest to be ever free 

* Meuiete, Meuandri Reliq., 188. 



MEN A NDER. 9 

From pain and evil, then thou seekest this, — 
To be a god, or die." * 

One does not wonder that Horace, when he shut him- 
self up in his country villa in December, to escape 
from the noisy riot of the Saturnalia at Borne, took 
with him into his retirement a copy of Menander as 
well as of Plato. l>o doubt he read and appreciated 
the philosopher ; and the manuscript looked well upon 
his table when his friends called. But we may be 
sure that the dramatist was his favourite companion. 
In him Horace found a thoroughly congenial spirit ; 
and we shall probably never know how far he was 
indebted to him for his turn of thought. 

Menander's private habits seem to have been too much 
those of an Epicurean in the lower sense of the term ; 
and if Phsedrus is to be trusted in the sketch which he 
gives of him in a couple of lines, he had a good deal 
of the foppishness not uncommon to popular authors. 
Phaedrus describes him as " scented with delicate per- 
fumes, wearing the fashionable flowing dress, and 
walking with an air of languor and affectation." t 

It is possible, indeed, that the philosophic and didac- 
tic character of Menander's comedies may have been 
one reason why they failed so often to win popular 
applause. Horace himself must have been the poet of 
the court, and of what we call " Society," rather than 
of the million. The comedy of manners, which deals 
with the problems of domestic life — and such is the 
comedy of Menander — had not so strong an attraction 

* Meineke, Menand. ReL, 203. + Fabul., v. 1. 



10 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 

for the multitude as the uproarious farce which formed 
so large an ingredient of the Old Comedy. So far as we 
can judge from the mere disjointed fragments which 
alone have survived, there was very little of broad fun or 
of comic situations in the plays of Menander. It was 
in the finer delineation of character, as is admitted by 
all his critics, that he most excelled. He had studied 
carefully, and reproduced successfully, the various 
phases of that human nature which was the Alpha and 
Omega in his philosophy. The saying of the wise 
man of old — " Know thyself" — was a very insufficient 
lesson, he considered, for the dramatist. 

" It was not, after all, so wisely said, 
That precept — ( Know thyself ; ' I reckon it 
Of more advantage to know other men." * 

How real the characters in his dramas appeared to those 
who had the best means of judging may be gathered 
from the terse epigram ascribed to the grammarian 
Aristophanes, the librarian of Alexandria, who lived 
about a century after him: — 

" Life, and Menander ! speak, and say 
Which copied which ? or nature, or the play ? " 

There certainly does not seem to have been that variety 
in the characters introduced which we expect and find 
in the modern drama. But life itself had not then the 
variety of interest which it has now : and the sameness 
of type which we observe in the persons of the drama 
probably existed also in society. It must be re- 

* Meineke, Meiiand. lie!,, 83. 



MEN AN DEB*. 11 

membered also that, owing to the immense size of 
the theatres, every performer wore a mask in which 
the features were exaggerated, just as he wore buskins 
which increased his stature, in order to make his face 
and figure distinctly visible to the distant rows of the 
audience. These masks necessarily presented one fixed 
expression of features; they could not possibly be 
made to display the variable shades of emotion which 
a real comedian knows how to throw into his face ; 
nor could the actor, if he was to preserve his identity for 
the audience, change his mask together with his mood 
from scene to scene. This difficulty would naturally limit 
the dramatic author's sphere of invention: he would feel 
chat he had to confine himself to certain recognised 
generalities of character, such as the mask-moulder could 
contrive more or less to represent, and that the finer 
shades of distinction which, in spite of so much that is 
identical, distinguish man from man, must be left for 
the descriptive poet, and were outside of the province 
of the author who worked for the stage. The 
cold severity of Greek tragedy did not suffer much 
from this limitation of the actor's resources : the level 
and stately declamation of the text might be accom- 
plished perhaps as well with a mask (which was even 
said to increase the volume of sound) as without it. 
So also, in the Old Comedy of Aristophanes and his 
contemporaries, the exaggerated style of their humour 
found apt expression in the broad grotesque which the 
mask-maker and property-man supplied, — just as they 
do now in our burlesques and extravaganzas. The 
delicate play of features and expression which are 
so essential to the due impersonation of some of the 



12 THE ANCIEN1 COMIC DRAMA. 

most original characters in our modern drama was 
plainly impossible to an actor who wore a mask : one 
might as reasonably look for it from a company of 
Marionettes. The manufacturer of masks for the 
ancient comic drama worked according to fixed rules, 
which were perfectly well understood both by the 
performers and by the audience. There was a tolerably 
large repertory of these contrivances always at the 
disposal of the stage-manager : but each mask had its 
own specific character ; its features were so moulded as 
to be typical of a class. We are told with great par- 
ticularity that about the period during which these 
comedies were placed upon the stage, there were nine 
different characters of masks representing old men, ten 
for younger characters, and seven for slaves. For the 
women, three varieties were considered enough for the 
older personages, the matrons and nurses of the scene. 
The young ladies, as was their due, were better pro- 
vided for ; no less than fourteen varieties of face were 
kept in stock for them. And the mask, in their case — 
unlike some masks which are still worn on the stage 
of real life — was made not to conceal but to indicate 
the character of the wearer, and even her age. There 
was to be found, in the theatrical wardrobe, the face 
and head-dress, all in one, which denoted " the 
talkative young woman," and the " modest young 
woman ; " the one who was still fairly on her promotion, 
and the one who was past her prime ; there was a 
special mask for the young lady " with the hair," and 
one still more peculiar, the " lamp " head-dress, as it 
was called, for the young lady whose hair stood up- 
right like a lamp. There was the head-dress " with 



MMNANDE& 13 

the gold band," and that with " the band of many 
colours ; " and, if we did not know that in the classical 
comedy, as on our own stage in former times, even the 
female parts were taken by men, we might have 
fancied that there was some jealous rivalry as to the 
right to wear these latter distinguished costumes. 
The advantage of the system, if any, was this : that 
the moment the performer appeared upon the scene, 
the audience had the key to the character.* 

The range of characters which were available for the 
purposes of the dramatist was limited again by the 
nature of the scenic arrangements. By long theatrical 
tradition, intelligible enough amongst a people who 
led essentially an outdoor life, and where the theatre 
itself was, up to a comparatively late period, open to 
the sky, all the action of these dramas was supposed 
to take place in the open air. In the comedies which 
we are now considering, the scene is commonly a pub- 
lic street, — or rather, probably, a sort of " place " or 
square in which three or four streets met, so that there 
was ^as has been more than once attempted on the mo- 
dern stage) a virtual separation of it into distinct parts, 
very convenient in many ways for carrying on the action 

* Should any English reader be inclined to smile, with 
some degree of superciliousness, at these simple contrivances 
of the earlier drama, let him remember there was a time when a 
provincial actor in an English strolling company would bor- 
row of some good-natured squire a full-bottomed wig and lace 
ruffles in which to perform the part of — Cato ; without which 
conventional costume it was thought no audience could recog- 
nise the "noble Roman." George Harding tells us an 
amusing story of the Eton amateurs of his day impressing a 
cast-off wig of the Yice-Provost's for the purpose, 



14 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 

of the piece. A party coming down one street towards 
the centre of the stage could hold a separate conversa- 
tion, and be quite out of the sight of another party in 
the other street, while both were equally visible and 
audible to the spectators. This will help to explain 
the stage directions in more than one scene in the 
comedies of Plautus and Terence. But this limitation 
of the locality of the scene limited also the range of 
characters. These were usually supposed to be resi- 
dents in the neighbourhood, and occupants of some of 
the houses in the street. Practically, they will be 
very often found to be members of two neighbouring 
families, more or less closely connected, whose houses 
occupied what we should now call the right and left 
wings of the stage. Occasionally (as in the ' Aulularia ' 
and ' Mostellaria ' of Plautus) the scene changes to the 
inside of one of the houses, or a temple which stands 
close by ; but such scenes are quite exceptional, and 
in those cases some kind of stage chamber appears to 
have been swung round by machinery to the front. 

For these reasons, perhaps, as well as for oMiers, 
the ' principal characters in the repertory of the 
" New " Comedy are few, and broadly marked. They 
seem to have occurred over and over again with but 
little variation in almost every piece. There are 
the fathers, heads of families, well-to-do burghers, 
occupying their house in the city, and commonly 
having a farm in the adjacent country besides, but 
seldom appearing to have any other particular occu- 
pation. Their character is almost always one of two 
recognised types,— either stern and niggardly, in which 
case they are duly cheated and baffled by their spend- 



MENANDER. 15 

thrift sons and their accomplices : or mild and easy, 
when they go through the process of having their 
purses squeezed with less resistance and less suffering. 
There is the respectable mother of the family, who is 
sometimes the terror of her husband and sometimes 
tyrannised over by him. One or two sons, and some- 
times a daughter — to which number the household of 
comedy seems limited — make up the family group. 
The sons are young men about town, having apparently 
nothing to do but to amuse themselves, a pursuit 
which they do not always follow after the most re- 
putable fashion . Then there are the slaves, on whom 
depends in very great measure the action of the piece. 
It is very remarkable how in Greek comedy, and in 
the Eoman adaptations from it, this class supplies 
not only the broadly comic element, but the w T it 
of the dialogue, and the fertility of expedient which 
makes the interest of the drama. They are not 
brought upon the stage merely to amuse us by their 
successful roguery, or by its detection and consequent 
punishment, by their propensity to gormandise and 
their drunken antics, — this kind of "low comedy 
business "is what we might naturally expect of them. 
But in witty repartee, and often in practical wisdom, 
they are represented as far superior to their masters. 
And this ability of character is quite recognised by the 
masters themselves. They are intrusted, like Parmeno 
in the ' Eunuchus' of Terence, with the care of the sons 
of the house, even at that difficult age when they are 
growing up to manhood, during the father's absence 
abroad : or like his namesake in the ' Plocium ' of 
Menander, and Geta in the ' Two Brothers ' of Terence, 



16 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 

they are the trusted friend and mainstay of a struggling 
family. It is by no means easy to explain satisfac- 
torily this anomalous position. The slave no doubt 
in many cases, owing the loss of his personal liberty 
to the fortunes of war, being either a captive or a 
captive's child, might, although a foreigner, be of 
as good birth and hereditary intellect as his master. 
In many households he would go to the same 
school, and enjoy the same training in many 
ways as the young heir of the family : he would 
be taught many accomplishments, because the more 
accomplished he was, the more valuable a chattel he 
became. But was it also that these Athenian citizens, 
from whom Menander drew, held themselves some- 
what above the common practical business of life — in 
short, like the Easterns in the matter of dancing, 
considered that they " paid some one else to do their 
thinking for them " in such matters 1 The witty slave 
occupied a position in those households somewhat akin 
to the king's jester in late times — allowed to use a free- 
dom which w r ould not have been suffered from those of 
higher rank, but limited always by the risk of condign 
personal chastisement if he ventured too far. The 
household slave was certainly admitted to most of his 
master's secrets ; admitted, it must be remembered, 
almost of necessity, as many of our own modern servants 
are — a condition of things which we are all too apt to 
forget. He might at any moment by his ability and 
fidelity win, as so many did, his personal freedom, and 
became from that moment his master's friend ; not, in- 
deed, upon terms of perfect equality, but on a much 
nearer level than we in these days should be willing 



MENANDKR. 17 

to allow. No stronger instance of this need be sought 
than that of Cicero's freedman Tiro, between whom and 
his master we find existing an affection almost fraternal. 
The slave who had gained his freedom might rise — for 
it was Terence's own case — to be a successful dramatist 
himself, and to sit down at table with such men as 
Scipio and Laelius. The anomaly is that a man 
who stood in such confidential relations to his master, 
and with such possibilities in his future, should feel 
himself every moment liable, at that master's slightest 
caprice, to the stocks and the whip. But it is an 
anomaly inherent to the institution of slavery itself ; 
and no worse examples of it need be sought than are 
to be found in the annals of modern slave plantations. 
In the few fragments of Menander which remain 
to us we find the poet adopting, as to the slave's 
position, a much higher tone than we might have ex- 
pected, and which is very remarkable in a writer who 
would certainly never have dreamed of the abolition 
of a system which must have appeared to him a neces- 
sity of civilisation. It is a tone, be it said, which we 
do not find in his Eoman imitators, Plautus or Terence. 
He plainly feels slavery to be an evil — a degradation 
to the nature of man. His remedy is a lofty one — 
freedom of soul : — 

" Live as a free man — and it makes thee free." * 

The young men are, as has been said, usually very 
much of the same type, and that not a very high 
one : hot-blooded and impulsive, with plenty of self- 
ish good-nature, and in some cases a capacity for 

*Meineke, Menand. ReL, 269. 
A. C. voL xvi. B 



18 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 

strong and disinterested friendship. We have too 
little opportunity of judging what Menande* made of 
them ; but in Terence they have commonly the re- 
deeming point of a strong affection for their parents 
underlying all their faults, though it does not prevent 
them from intriguing with their slaves to cheat them 
in order to the gratification of their own passions or 
extravagance. Yet their genuine repentance when de- 
tected, and the docility with which they usually accept 
their father's arrangements for them in the matter of 
a wife, are a remarkable proof of the strength of the 
paternal influence. The daughter of the family may be 
said (in quite a literal sense) to have no character at 
all. She is brought up in something stricter than even 
what Dry den calls " the old Elizabeth way, which was 
for maids to be seen and not heard ; " for she is never 
seen or heard, though we are always led to believe that 
she is an irreproachable young lady, possessing a due 
amount of personal charms, and with a comfortable 
dowry ; which combined attractions are quite sufficient 
to make one of the young gentlemen happy — some- 
times at very short notice — in the last scene of tjic 
play. But it was not etiquette for an unmarried 
woman at Athens to make her appearance in the public 
streets — and in the streets, for the reasons already 
given, the action of the piece invariably takes place. 
Of some of the ladies who do appear on the stage the 
same remark as to character (in a different sense) might 
be made ; and if something less were seen and heard 
of them, it might be better. 

This entire absence of what we should call love- 
scenes, places these dramas at an enormous disadvantage 



MENAXDER. 19 

before the modern reader. Yet in one direction, a great 
approach to modern ways of thought had been made 
in this New Athenian Comedy. Love, with the 
dramatists of this school, is no longer the mere animal 
passion of some of the older poets, nor yet that fatal and 
irresistible influence which we see overpowering mind 
and reason in the Medea of Euripides, or in the 
Dido of Virgil. It has become, in Menander and his 
followers, much more like the love of modern romance. 
It is a genuine mutual affection between the sexes, 
not always well regulated, but often full of tender- 
ness, and capable of great constancy. Still, the mo- 
dern romance is not there. It was very well for ancient 
critics to say that Menander was emphatically a writer 
of love-dramas — that there was no play of his which 
had not a love-story in the plot : and it is true, if Ave 
may judge from the Latin adaptations, that his come- 
dies usually ended in marriage. But a marriage with 
a bride whom the audience have never been allowed 
to see, and for whose charms they must take the bride- 
groom's word, has not a very vivid interest for them. 
The contrivances by which, in order to suit what were 
then considered the proprieties, the fair object is kept 
carefully out of sight while the interest in her fortunes 
is still kept up, will seem to an English reader a 
striking instance of misplaced ingenuity. 

If, however, in these comedies of ancient domestic 
life we miss that romance of feeling which forms so 
important an element — if it may not rather be said to 
be of the very essence — of the modern drama, we escape 
altogether from one style of plot which was not only the 
reproach of our old English comedy-writers, but is still 



20 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 

too common a resource with modern writers of fiction, 
romantic or dramatic. The sanctities of married life 
are not tampered with to create a morbid interest for 
audience or reader. The husband may sometimes be a 
domestic tyrant, or his wife a scold, and their matri- 
monial wrangles are not unfrequently produced for the 
amusement of the audience ; but there is little hint of 
any business for the divorce court. The morality of 
these comedies is lax in many respects, chiefly because 
the whole law of moral it} r was lower on those points 
(at least in theory) in the pagan world than it is in the 
Christian : but the tie of tidelity between husband and 
wife is fully recognised and regarded. In this respect 
some advance had been made, at least so far as popular 
comedy was concerned, since the time of Aristophanes. 
His whole tone on such points is cynical and sneering ; 
and when he lashes as he does with such out-spoken 
severity the vices of the sex, it seems to be without any 
consciousness of their bearing upon domestic happi- 
ness. The wife, in his days at least, was not the 
companion of her husband, but a property to be kept 
as safe as might be, and their real lives lay apart. 
Some considerable change must have taken place in 
these relations at the time when Menander wrote, if 
we may judge from scattered expressions in his lost 
comedies. He is not, upon the whole, complimentary 
to marriage, and he makes capital enough out of its 
risks and annoyances ; he does not think (or perhaps 
professes not to think) that good wives are common. 
" Needs must that in a wife we gain an evil, — 
Happy is he who therein gains the least."* 

* Meineke, Menand. Eel., 190. 



MENANDER. 21 

But, if a really good wife can be found, he admits 
with the wise Hebrew king that " her price is above 
rubies." Verses like the following, salvage from the 
wreck of his plays, passed into proverbs : — 

" A virtuous woman is a man's salvation." 
" A good wife is the rudder of the house." 

He is honest enough, too, to lay the fault of ill-assorted 
marriages at the door of those who have to choose in 
such a matter, as much as of those who are chosen ; in 
this, as in other things, he recognises a certain law of 
supply and demand. 

" What boots it to be curious as to lineage — 
Who was her grandfather, and her mother's mother — 
Which matters nought 1 while, for the bride herself, 
Her whom we have to live with, — what she is, 
In mind and temper, this we never ask. 
They bring the dowry out, and count it down, 
Look if the gold be good, of right assay, — 
The gold, which some few months shall see the end of ; 
While she who at our hearth must sit through life, 
We make no trial of, put to no proof, 
Before we take her, but trust all to chance."* 

The gibes which he launches against women seem 
to have been not more than half in earnest. He pro- 
bably borrowed the tone from Euripides, of whom he 
was a great admirer, and whose influence may be 
pretty clearly traced in the style and sentiment of his 
comedies. 

We usually find, then, the chief parts in the comedy 
filled by the members of one or two neighbouring 

*Meineke, Menand. Rel., 189. 



22 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 

families. Of the other characters who are introduced, 
two of the most common, and therefore, we must sup- 
pose, the most popular, are the Braggadocio and the 
Parasite. The former is usually a soldier of fortune 
who has served in the partisan wars in Asia, under 
some of those who were disputing for the fragments of 
Alexander's empire ; who has made money there, and 
come to Athens — as a modern successful adventurer 
might go to Paris — to spend it. He has long stories to 
tell of his remarkable exploits abroad, which no one 
is very well able to contradict, and to which those 
who accept his dinners are obliged to listen with such 
patience as they may. His bravery consists much 
more in words than deeds : he thinks that his repu- 
tation will win him great favour from the ladies, but 
on this point he commonly finds himself very much 
mistaken. How far such a character was common at 
Athens in Menander's time, we cannot say : he appears, 
with variations, in at least five of his comedies of which 
fragments have reached us, and in no less than eight 
out of the twenty which remain to us of Plautus. He 
would evidently present salient points for the farce- 
writer, and it is not surprising to find him repro- 
duced, no doubt an adaptation from these earlier 
sketches, as the " Spanish Captain" of Italian comedy, 
or the " Derby Captain " of our own. He is the Don 
Gaspard of Scarron's ' Jodelet Duelliste/ Le Capitaine 
Matamore of Corneille's l L'lllusion Comique/ and the 
Bobadil of Jonson's ' Every Man in his Humour/ In 
Spain or Italy he is perhaps more in his natural place 
— for these military adventurers were not uncommon in 
the Continental wars of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- 



MENANDER. 23 

turies — than lie is in the plays of Plautus or of Terence, 
who transferred him bodily from their Greek original : 
for the Eomans themselves were not likely to furnish 
examples of him, and no hired mercenary would have 
ventured to swagger in those days at Eome. To a 
Eoman audience this could only have been one of those 
conventional characters, made to be laughed at, which 
an easy public is very often willing to accept from an 
author's hands. He is sometimes accompanied by the 
Parasite, who is content to eat his dinners on condition 
of listening to his military reminiscences, and occasion- 
ally drawing them out for the benefit of others, — act- 
ing, in short, generally as his humble foil and toady. 
This is a character almost peculiar to the comedy of 
this school, and which has not found its way much 
into the modern drama. In the Athens of Menander, 
and in the Eome of Plautus and Terence, when life 
was altogether more in public, and when men of any 
moderate position seldom dined alone, the character, 
though not in the exaggerated form wmich suited the 
purpose of the comic dramatist, appears to have been 
sufficiently common. Athenaaus, from whose curious 
1 Table-Talk ' we learn so much about the social life of 
those times, notes three distinct classes of the Para- 
site. There was the professed talker — the narrator of 
anecdotes and sayer of good things — who w^as in- 
vited to " make sport " for the guests who might be too 
grand or too dull to amuse each other ; and this useful 
class of " diner-out " is not altogether unknown in 
modern society. This variety of the character seems 
to have not unfrequently " read up " carefully in pre- 
paration for the display of the evening, as modern 



24 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA, 

professors of the art of conversation have heen reported 
to do. " I wi]l go in and have a look at my common- 
place-books, and learn up some better jokes," says 
Gelasimus in the ' Stichus ' of Plautus, when he is 
afraid of being superseded by some new pretenders. 
There was, again, the mere toady and flatterer, of 
whom we shall see a specimen presently in one of the 
fragments of Menander, as well as in the comedies of 
Plautus ;■* and of whom we have some historical ex- 
amples fully as ludicrous as any inventions of the stage, 
if the biographers of Philip and Alexander of Macedon 
are to be trusted. We are told, that whenever King 
Philip ate anything sour or acid, and made wry 
faces at it, his flatterer Cleisophos went through exactly 
the same grimaces ; when the king hurt his leg, 
Cleisophos immediately put on a limp ; and when the 
king lost his right eye by the arrow at Methone, the 
courtier appeared next morning with the same eye 
bandaged up. It is also said that to wear the head a 
little on one side became quite the fashion in the court 
of Alexander, because he himself had a slight deformity 
of the kind. Another variety of the parasite was the 
still meaner humble companion, who carried messages 
and did little services of all kinds, sometimes worse 
than menial, for his richer patron. 

An amusing soliloquy of one of these hungry guests 
who is waiting for his dinner (having possibly found 
no entertainer, and therefore no dinner at all, the day 
before) has been preserved for us by Aulus Gellius out 
of a lost comedy which he attributes to Plautus, — 

* See p. 44. 



MEN A NDER. 25 

1 The Boeotian/ — founded upon one of the same name 
by Menander : — 

" The gods confound the man who first invented 
This measuring time by hours ! Confound him, too, 
Who first set up a sun-dial — chopping up 
My day into these miserable slices ! 
When I was young, I had no dial but appetite, 
The very best and truest of all timepieces ; 
When that said i Eat,' I ate — if I could get it. 
But now, even when I've the chance to eat, I must not, 
Unless the sun be willing ! for the town 
Is grown so full of those same cursed dials, 
That more than half the population starve." * 

These persons are represented, of course, as having 
not only the habit of living as far as possible at other 
men's expense, but as bringing an insatiable appetite 
with them to their entertainers' tables — 

* 'Tis not to gather strength he eats, but wishes 
To gather strength that he may eat the more." f 

Keith er host nor servants are sparing in their gibes 
as to the gormandising propensities of this class of self- 
invited guests. The cook in 'The Mensechmi ' of 
Plautus is ordered to provide breakfast for three : — 

Cook. What sort of three ? 

JSrotium. Myself, Mensechnius, and his Parasite. 
Cook. Then that makes ten. I count the parasite 
As good as any eight. 

Although the character of the Parasite is a direct 
importation from the Greek stage, it was likely to be a 
very common one also in Roman society. The rela- 

* Aul. Gell., hi. 3. + Fragment of Plautus. 



26 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 

tion of patron and client, which meets ns everywhere 
in the Roman city life of those days- — when the great 
man was surrounded with his crowds of hangers-on, all 
more or less dependent upon and obsequious to him, 
and often eating at his table — was sure to breed in 
plenty that kind of human fungus. 

Among the remaining characters common to this 
Menandrian Comedy we meet with the waiting-maid, 
more or less pert and forward — who, although a slave, 
seems to have had considerable liberty of tongue, and 
who maintains her ground upon the modern stage 
with little more change in the type than has followed 
necessarily with the changes of society. There is, again, 
the family nurse, garrulous but faithful ; and some- 
times we have another of the household in the person 
of the family cook. Lastly, there is the hateful slave- 
merchant, the most repulsive character in the Greek 
and Roman drama, and upon whose ways and doings 
there is no need for us here to dwell. 

The philosophy of Menander has been spoken of as 
distinctly of an Epicurean character, and his morality 
is certainly no whit higher than that of his age and 
times. Yet fragments of his have escaped the general 
wreck, which have in them a grave melancholy not 
usually associated in our ideas with the teaching of 
that school, and which have led a modern scholar, than 
whom no one understood more thoroughly the spirit of 
Greek literature, to remark that Menander after all 
seems to have been "more adapted to instruct than 
to entertain." * Such a fragment is the following : — 

* Walter Savage Landor. 



MENANDER. 27 

" If thou wouldst know thyself, and what thou art, 
Look on the sepulchres as thou dost pass ; 
There lie within the bones and little dust 
Of mighty kings and wisest men of old ; 
They who once prided them on birth or wealth, 
Or glory of great deeds, or beauteous form ; 
Yet nought of these might stay the hand of Time. 
Look, — and bethink thee thou art even as they."* 

We find also passages quoted as his, though their 
genuineness is somewhat doubtful, which breathe a 
higher tone still. The sentiment expressed in the fol- 
lowing lines, attributed to the poet by Clement of 
Alexandria, is almost identical with that of the grand 
passage with which Persius concludes his second 
Satire : — 

u Trust me, my Pamphilus, if any think 
By offering hecatombs of bulls or goats, 
Or any other creature, — or with vests 
Of cloth of gold or purple making brave 
Their images, or with sheen of ivory, 
Or graven jewels wrought with cunning hand, — 
So to make Heaven well-pleased with him, he errs, 
And hath a foolish heart. The gods have need 
That man be good unto his fellow-men, 
No unclean liver or adulterer, 
Nor thief nor murderer from the lust of gain, 
Nay, covet not so much as a needle's thread, 
For One stands by, who sees and watches all." f 

The same writer has quoted another line as from the 
Greek dramatist, referring to the purification required 

* Menand. Eel., 196. t Clem. Alex. Strom., v. c. 14. 



28. THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 

of the worshipper of the gods, which is a close parallel 
to the Christian teaching : — 

" He is well cleansed that hath his conscience clean." 

Another father of the Church has cited a terse 
apophthegm, which he attributes to Menander, as an 
argument to show the folly of idolatry : — 

" The workman still is greater than his work." * 

We owe the loss of Menander's plays most probably 
to the fierce crusade made by the authorities of the 
early Church against this kind of heathen literature. 
Yet it is plain that this feeling was not shared by the 
ecclesiastical writers who have been quoted ; and it is 
singular that we have one sentence of his embalmed 
in the writings of a still higher authority — St Paul : 

" Evil communications corrupt good manners." 

A manuscript of some at least of these comedies was 
said to have been long preserved in the library of the 
Patriarch at Constantinople, but it seems to have 
escaped the search of modern scholars, and has pro- 
bably in some way disappeared.t 

How great the loss has been to the literary world 
cannot be measured, though something may be guessed. 
It may be said of him as was said of our own Jeremy 
Taylor — "His very dust is gold." The number of 
single verses and distiches caught up from his plays 
which passed into household proverbs show how 
widely his writings must have leavened the literary 

* Justin Mart., Apol. i. 20. t See Journ. of Educ, i. 138. 



MENANDER. 29 

taste both of Athenians and Eomans. The estima- 
tion in which he was held by those who had access 
to his works in their integrity is fully justified by 
what we can trace of his remains. " To judge of 
Menander from Terence and Plautus is easy but 
dangerous," says M. Guizot ; dangerous, because we 
cannot tell how much he may have lost in the process 
of adaptation to the Eoman stage. Caesar has been 
thought to have spoken slightingly of Terence when 
he called him " a half-Men and er :" but the Eoman poet 
in all likelihood bore no such proportion to his great 
original. 



CHAPTEE lit 



PLAUTUS. 



-Aa-4l^-wi4ter-&-...Q f Con iady-fQJL ihe Eonian stage f of 
whose works we have any knowledge, were direct imi- 
tators of Menander and his school. Plautus, however, 
was probably less indebted to him than were his succes- 
sors, Csecilius, Lavinius, and Terence. Of the two inter- 
mediate authors we know very little ; but Plautus and 
Terence have been more fortunate in securing for them- 
selves a modern audience, \Their comedies may not have 
been really better worth possessing than those of other 
writers who had their day of popularity : but theirs 
alone have been preserved, and it is from them that 
we have to form our judgment of the Comedy of Ee- 
publican Eome.\ 

Titus Maccius Plautus — the second would be what 
we should call his surname, and the last simply means 
" flat-foot " * in the dialect of Umbria, the district in 

* Literary tradition in some quarters asserted that in one of 
his comedies he introduced a sketch — certainly not too nattering 
— of his own personal appearance : 

" A red-haired man, with round protuberant belly, 
Legs with stout calves, and of a swart complexion : 
Large head, keen eyes, red face, and monstrous feet." 
— Pseudolus, act iv. sc, 7. 



PLAUTUS. 31 

which he was born, — was a man of humble origin, the 
son, according to some authorities, of a slave. But little 
is known with any certainty on these points. He is said 
to have made money in trade, and to have lost it again ; 
to have then worked as a stage carpenter or machinist, 
and so perhaps to have acquired his theatrical taste. 
These early associations are taken also, by some critics, 
as an explanation of some^rudeness and^jfiarsenesiLin his 
plays ; for which, however, the popular taste is quite 
as likely to have been accountable as any peculiar 
tendencies of the writer. Like that marvel of dra- 
matic prolificness, Lope de Vega, who quotes him as 
an apology, Plautus wrote for the people, and might 
have pleaded, as the Spaniard did, that " it was only 
fair that the customers should be served with what 
suited their taste." The masses who thronged 
the Eoman theatres had not the fine intellect of the 
Commons of Athens. Aristophanes could never have 
depended upon them for due appreciation of his double- 
edged jests, or appealed to them as critical judges of 
humour. The less keen but more polished dialogue and 
didactic moralising of Menander would have been still 
less attractive to such an audience as that to which 
Plautus had to look for favour. The games of the circus 
— the wild-beast fight and the gladiators, the rope-dan 
cers, the merry-andrews, and the posture-masters, — were 
more to their taste than clever intrigue and brilliant 
dialogue. 

Plautus — we know him now only by his sobriquet — 
began his career as adramatist n.o. 224— He continued 
to write for the stage, almost without a rival in popu- 
larity, until his death, forty years later. How many 



/ 



32 THE ROMAN COMIC DRAMA. 

comedies lie produced during this long service of the 
public we do not know : twenty remain bearing his 
name, all which are considered to be genuine. All, 
with the exception probably of ' Amphitryon/ are 
taken from Greek originals. It is not necessary here 
to give a list of their titles ; the most interesting of 
them will be noticed in their order. With Greek 
characters, Greek names, and Greek scenery, he gives 
us undoubtedly the Roman manners of his day, which 
are illustrated more fully in his pages than in those of 
the more refined Terence. Let the scene of the drama 
lie where it will, we are in the streets of Rome all the 
while. Athenians, Thebans, orEphesians, his dramatis 
personal are all of one country, just as they speak one 
language; they are no more real Greeks than Shak- 
speare's Othello is a Moor, or his Proteus a " gentle- 
man of Verona" — except in the bill of the play. So 
little attempt does he make to keep up anything like 
an illusion on this point, that he even speaks of "tri- 
umvirs " at Thebes, builds a " Capitol " at Epidaurus, 
and makes his characters talk about " living like those 
Greeks/' and " drinking like Greeks," utterly careless 
of the fact that they are supposed to be Greeks them- 
selves. He is as independent of such historical and 
geographical trifles as our own great dramatist when 
he makes Hector quote Aristotle, or gives a sea-coast 
to Bohemia. But he has the justification which all 
great dramatists would fairly plead; that his characters, 
though distinctly national in colour, are in a wider 
sense citizens of the world ; they speak, in whatever 
language, the sentiments of civilised mankind. 

However coarse in many respects the matter and 



PLAUTUS. 33 

style of Plautus may appear to us, it is certain that 
good judges amongst those who were more nearly his 
contemporaries thought very highly of his diction. It 
was said of him by iElius Stolo that " if the Muses 
ever spoke Latin, it would he the Latin of Plautus. " 
Perhaps he was the first who raised conversational Latin 
to the dignity of a literary style. 

His plays are in most cases introduced by a prologue, 
spoken sometimes by one of the characters in the play, 
and sometimes by a mythological personage, such as 
Silenus or Arcturus. The prologue generally gives jm 
outline of the plot, and this has been objected to by 
some critics as destroying the interest of the action 
which is to follow. But a similar practice has been 
adopted of late years in our own theatres, of giving 
the audience, in the play-bill, a sketch of the leading 
scenes and incidents ; and this is generally found to in- 
crease the intelligent enjoyment of the play itself. The 
prologues of Plautus frequently also contain familiar ap- 
peals on the part of the manager to the audience, and 
give us a good deal of information as to the materials of 
which the audience was composed. The mothers are 
requested to leave their babies at home, for the babies' 
sakes as well as for the sake of other people ; and the 
children who are in the theatre are begged not to make 
a noise. The slaves are desired not to occupy the seats, 
which are not intended for them, but to be content 
with standing-room ; protests are made against the 
system of claqueurs, — friends of some favourite actor, 
who gave their applause unfairly, to the discredit of 
others : and the wives are requested not to interrupt 
the performance with their chatter, and so annoy their 

a. c. vol. xvi. 



34 THE ROM/N COMIC DRAMA. 

husbands who are come to see the play. Remarks of 
this kind, addressed to the " house/' are not confined, 
however, to the prologue, but occur here and there in 
the scene itself ; these last are evident relics of the 
earlier days of comedy, for we find no such in the plays 
of Terence. 



HEAD< 



CHAPTER IY. 

THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
I. — THE THREE SILVER PIECES. 

The plot of this little comedy, which is confessedly 
borrowed from the Greek of Philemon, and is called in 
the original w^ith perhaps more propriety " The Buried 
Treasure," is simple enough. Charmides, a rich citizen 
of Athens, has been half ruined by an extravagant son. 
He goes abroad, leaving this son and a daughter in 
charge of his old friend Callicles, begging Lim to do 
what he can to keep young Lesbonicus from squander- 
ing the little that is left of the family property. At the 
same time, he intrusts his friend with a secret. He has 
buried under his house a treasure — three thousand gol<{ 
Philips.* This, even if things come to the worst, will 
serve to provide a marriage portion for his daughter, 
in the event of his not living to return to Athens. 
Callicles has strivsn in vain to persuade the young man 
to mend his ways ; Lesbonicus has gone on in the same 
course of extravagance, until he has nothing left but a 

* Gold coins struck by the Macedonian kings, and worth about 
two guineas apiece. 



36 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

small farm outside the city, and the house in which he 
lives — and where the treasure is buried. This house 
at last he offers for sale : and Callicles is only just in 
time to buy it in for himself, and so to preserve for 
his absent friend the precious deposit. 

The action of the piece is introduced by a short 
allegorical ' Prologue/ in which Luxury introduces her 
daughter Poverty into the house of the prodigal, and 
bids her take possession : a very direct mode of en- 
forcing its moral upon the audience. This moral, how- 
ever, is by no means carried out with the same distinct- 
ness in the catastrophe. 

So much of the story is told at the opening of the 
play by Callicles to a friend, who seems to have called 
purposely to tell him some disagreeable truths — as is 
the recognised duty of a friend. People are talking 
unpleasantly about his conduct : they say that he has 
been winking at the young man's extravagance, and 
has now made a good thing of it by buying at a low 
price the house which he is obliged to sell. Callicles 
listens with some annoyance, but at first with an 
obstinate philosophy. Can he do nothing, his friend 
asks, to put a stop to these evil rumours % 

I can, — and I can not ; 'tis even so ; 

As to their saying it, — that I cannot help ; 

I can take care they have no cause to say it. 

But, on his old friend pressing him, he yields so far as 
to intrust him with the whole secret. 

A suitor now appears for the hand of the young 
daughter of the absent Charmides. It is Lysiteles, a 
young man of great wealth and noble character, the 



THE THREE SILVER PIECES, 37 

darling of an indulgent father, who consents, though 
with some natural unwillingness, not only to accept 
her as a daughter-in-law without a portion, but even to 
go in person and request the consent of her brother 
Lesbonicus, who is known to be as proud as he is now 
poor, and who is very likely to make his own poverty 
an objection to his sister's marrying into a rich family, 
though the lover is his personal friend. The father 
has an interview with him, but can only obtain his 
consent to such a marriage on condition that his friend 
will accept with her such dowry as he can give — the 
single farm which he has retained in his own possession 
out of all the family estate, and from which his faith- 
ful slave Stasimus — the classical prototype of Scott's 
Caleb Balderstone — is contriving to extract a living for 
his young master and himself. This honest fellow is 
present during part of the interview, and is horrified 
to hear the prodigal generosity with which the ruined 
heir insists, in spite of all the other's attempts to 
decline it, upon dowering his sister with the last re- 
mains of his estate. At last he draws Philto — the 
suitor's father — aside on some pretence, and the follow- 
ing dialogue ensues: — 



Stasimus. I have a secret for your ear, sir — only you ; 
Don't let him know I told you. 

Philto. You may trust me. 

Stas. By all that's good in heaven and earth, I warn 
you, 
Don't take that land — don't let your son set foot on it — 
I'll tell you why. 

Phil Well,— I should like to hear. 



38 THE COMEDIES 01 PLAUTVS. 

Stas. Well, to begin with — {confidentially) the oxen, 
when we plough it, 
Invariably drop down dead in the fifth furrow. 
Phil, (laughing). Stuff ! nonsense ! 
Stas. {getting more emphatic). People say there's devils 
in it ! 
The grapes turn rotten there before they're ripe. 

Lesbonicus (watching their conversation, and speaking 
to himself). He's humbugging our friend 
there, I'll be bound ! 
'Tis a good rascal, though — he's stanch to me. 

Stas. Listen again — in the very best harvest seasons, 
You get from it three times less than what you've sown. 

Phil. An excel] ent spot to sow bad habits in ! _ 
For there you're sure they won't spring up again. 

Stas. There never was yet a man who had that land, 
But something horrible always happened to him ; 
Some were transported — some died prematurely — 
Some hung themselves ! (jyauses to watch the effect.) And 
look at him, now, there — (motioning towards 
his master). The present owner — what is he ? 
— a bankrupt. 
Phil, (pretending to believe him). Well, heaven deliver 

me from such a bargain ! 
Stas. Amen to that ! — Ah ! you might say 'deliver 
me,' 
If you knew all. Why, every other tree 
Is blasted there by lightning ; all the hogs 
Die of pneumonia : all the sheep are scabbed ; 
Lose all their wool, they do, till they're as bare 
As the back of my hand is. Why, there's not a nigger 
(And they 11 stand anything) could stand the climate ; 
Die in six months, they all do, of autumn fever. 

Phil, (coolly). Ah ! I daresay. But our Campanian 
fellows 
Are much more hardy than the niggers. Still, 



THE THREE SILVER PIECES. 39 

This land, if it's at all what you describe it, 
Would be a fine place for a penal settlement, 
To banish rascals to, for the public good. 

Stas. 'Tis just a nest of horrors, as it is ; 
If you want anything bad, — there you may find it. 

Phil. No doubt ; — and so you may in other places. 

Stas. Now please don't let him know I've told yov 
this! 

Phil. Oh — honour bright ! I hold it confidential. 

Stas. Because, in fact, you see, he's very anxious 
To be well rid of it, if he can find a man 
That's fool enough to take it. — You perceive ? 

Phil. I do : I promise you, it shan't be me. 

Philto is unwilling either to accept the farm, or to hurt 
the feelings of Lesbonicus by the refusal — he will leave 
the two young friends, he says, to settle that matter 
between them. And poor old Stasimus is quite satis- 
fied that his pious falsehood has saved this remnant 
of the family property. 

Young Lysiteles is as reluctant to accept the offered 
marriage portion as his friend is determined, for his 
honour's sake, to give it : and the struggle between the 
two young men, which almost leads to a quarrel, gives 
occasion to a fine scene, though perhaps somewhat too 
wordy for our English taste. Lysiteles is the more hurt 
at his friend's obstinacy, because he has discovered his 
intention of quitting Athens, now that his patrimony 
is all gone, and taking service under some potentate 
in the East, the great field which was then open to 
young men of spirit and enterprise. Stasimus' despair, 
when he too learns this last resolution on the part of 
his young master, is highly comic : he will not desert 
him, even if he could, but he has no taste for a mili 



40 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

fcary life — wearing clumsy boots, and carrying a heavy 
buckler, and a pack on bis shoulders. 

But Callicles has heard of the proposed marriage, 
and will by no means allow his absent friend's daugh- 
ter to go to her bridegroom dowerless, when there is 
money stored away specially for that object. Eut how 
is it to be done without discovering to the public the 
secret of the buried treasure, which is sure to confirm 
the suspicion of his underhand dealings *? and which 
treasure if the young spendthrift once comes to know 
of, the rest of it will very soon follow the estate. If 
Callicles gives the money as out of his own pocket, 
people will only say that he was now doling out a part 
of some larger fund, left in his hands in trust, and 
which the girl and her brother ought to have had long 
ago. He adopts the scheme of hiring one of those un- 
scrupulous characters who hung about the law courts 
at Athens, as they do about our own, ready to under- 
take any business however questionable, and to give 
evidence to any effect required — "for a consideration." 
This man shall pretend to have just landed from foreign 
parts, and to have brought money from Charmides 
expressly for his daughter's marriage portion. The 
required agent is soon found, and his services engaged 
by Callicles for the " Three Silver Pieces/' which gives 
the name to the play. He is equipped in some out- 
landish-looking costume, hired from a theatrical ward- 
robe, and knocks £t the door of Charmides' house (a 
small apartment in which is still occupied by his son) 
as though just arrived from sea. But at the door ho 
meets no less a person than Charmides himself, who 
has just returned from his long absence, has noticed 



THE THREE SILVER PIECES. 41 

this strange-looking personage on his way from the 
harbour, and is much astonished to find him knocking 
at his own door. Still more surprised is he to hear 
that he is inquiring for his son Lesbonicus, and that 
he is bringing him a letter from his father. The scene 
between the pretended messenger and the returned 
traveller whose agent he professes to be, — the man's 
astonishment and embarrassment when he finds that he 
is talking to Charmides himself, and the consummate 
effrontery with which he faces the situation to the very 
last, long after he knows he is detected, is one of the 
most amusing scenes in Plautus, though unfortunately 
too long for insertion here. The impostor has not been 
prepared for any kind of cross-examination, and has even 
forgotten the name of Lesbonicus , father, from whom he 
asserts that he brings the money. His efforts to recover 
this name — which he says he has unfortunately " swal- 
lowed" in his hurry; his imaginary description of Char- 
mides, who stands before him in person ; the account he 
gives of his travels in countries he has never seen, — are 
all highly farcical. One argument in proof of the reality 
of his mission he advances triumphantly — the thou- 
sand gold pieces which he carries with him ; if he did 
not know Charmides personally, would he ever have 
intrusted him with the money 1 At last his inquisitor 
announces himself — " I am Charmides — so hand me 
over my money." The other is staggered for the 
moment : " Bless my life ! " he says to himself — "why, 
here's a greater impostor than I am ! " But he soon 
recovers his coolness. " That's all very well," he replies ; 
" but you never said a word about your being Char- 
mides until I told you I had the gold. You are only 



42 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

Oharmides for a particular purpose — and that won't do." 
— "Well, but if I am not Charm ides," says the father — 
not very cleverly — "who am IT' " Nay," says his op- 
ponent — " that's your business ; so long as you are not 
the person I don't intend you to be, you may be anything 
you please." As he is shrewd enough, however, to dis- 
cover that Charmides is the person whom he claims to 
be, and as the latter threatens to have him cudgelled 
if he does not leave his door, he makes his exit at last 
not in the least crestfallen, and congratulating him- 
self that, come what will, he has safely pocketed the 
Three Silver Pieces : he has done his best, he declares 
(as indeed he has), to earn them fairly, and can only go 
back to his employers and tell them that his mission 
has failed. 

The first person who meets Charmides on his return 
home is Stasimus. He has been drowning his dread 
of a military life in the wine-flagon, and has reached 
the sentimental stage of intoxication. His maundering 
moralities upon the wickedness and degeneracy of the 
present age, and the wickedness of the world in general, 
and his sudden recollection that while he is thus gene- 
ralising upon questions of public interest his own 
particular back is in great danger, for having loitered at 
the wine-shop, are admirably given. His old master is 
all the while standing in the background, listening with 
much amusement to his soliloquy, and throwing in an 
occasional remark aside, by way of chorus. When at 
length he discovers himself, the joy of the faithful old 
tippler sobers him at once, and he proceeds to tell his 
master how affairs have been going on in his absence. 
Charmides is shocked to hear of the continued extra va- 



THE THREE SILVER PIECES. 43 

gance of his son. of his sale of the house, and the 
consequent loss of the buried treasure on which he had 
depended, and still more at the faithlessness of his 
friend, — who has not only taken no care to prevent 
this catastrophe, but has employed his knowledge of 
the secret to' his own advantage in the most shameless 
manner, by becoming the purchaser of the house. 

Of course such misunderstanding is soon cleared up. 
The father hears with joy of his daughter's approach- 
ing marriage, and thanks young Lysiteles warmly for 
his generous conduct, though he will not allow him — 
especially as he has made money during his absence 
abroad — to take into his house a portionless bride. 
But the young man has a favour to ask of much more 
importance : it is that Charmides will overlook and 
forgive the extravagance of his dear friend, his son,- — 
who will, he assures him, do better in future. Some- 
what reluctantly the father consents — he can refuse 
nothing at such a moment, and to so gewerous a 
petitioner. His judgment upon the offender forms a 
characteristic ending to the piece. 

Charm. If you'll reform, my old friend Charicles 
Here offers you his daughter — a good girl ; 
Say, will you marry her ? 

Lesbon. {eagerly). I will, dear father ! 

I will — and any one else besides, to please you. 

Charm. Nay — one's enough : though I am angry with ye, 
I'll not inflict a double chastisement ; 
That were too hard. 

Collides {laughing). Nay, scarcely, for his sins — 
A hundred wives at once would serve him right. * 

* This is the only comedy of Plautus which has "been presented 
by "Westminster scholars of late years. When it was acted in 



44 TEE COMEDIES 01 PLA UTCS. 



II. THE BRAGGADOCIO. 

The hero — if he can be so called who is the very- 
opposite of a hero — in this comedy is one of those 
swaggering soldiers of fortune who have already been 
briefly described. His name, which is a swagger in 
itself, is Pyrgopolinices — " Tower of Victory." He is 
in the pay of Seleucus, for whom he is at present re- 
cruiting ; but he has also served, by his own account — 

"On the far-famed Gorgonidonian plains, 
Where the great Bumbomachides commanded — 
Cly tomestoridysarchides's son." * 

He is attended by his obsequious toady Artotrogus — 
" Bread-devourer " — who natters his vanity and swears 

1860, the humorous modern Latin Epilogue which now always 
follows the play (and which is really a short farce in itself) took 
an especially happy turn. A project was then on foot for remov- 
ing the School to a different site, and Lesbonicus is introduced 
in this epilogue as offering to sell the old College premises ; 
while "College John," as the scholars' official is always called, in 
the character of the slave Stasimus, endeavours to prevent the 
sale by enlarging upon the horrors of the Thames water and the 
squalor of Tothill Fields. The negotiation is stopped by the 
entrance of the Ghost of Dr Busby, who informs them of a 
treasure which he had buried under the old foundations. They 
proceed eagerly to dig, and the treasure proves to be — a gigantic 
hod ! which is exhumed and displayed in triumph to the audi- 
ence. This is, the old Master declares, the real key to honours — 
the "golden bough" of classic fable — 

" Aurea virga tibi est, portas quae pandit honorum." 

* We need not go far to seek the original of the opening lines 
of ' Bombastes Furioso,' where the hero asks— 
" Aldibarontiphoskifornio, 
How left you Chrononhotonthologos ? " 



THE BRAGGADOCIO. 45 

to the truth of all his bragging stories — "maintaining 
his teeth/' as he says, "at the expense of his ears." 
The Captain's stories are of such an outrageously lying 
description as to he somewhat too improbable for the 
subject of legitimate comedy, and we can only suppose 
that in this kind of fun the taste of a Eoman au- 
dience preferred a strong flavour. He affects to believe 
that not only do all the men dread his prowess, but 
that all the women are charmed with his person : and 
his companion and flatterer does his best to persuade 
him that it is so. 

Artotrogus. You saw those girls that stopped me yester- 
day ? 

Pyrgopolinices. What did they say ? 

Art. ^ T hy, when you passed, they asked me— ■ 

" What, is the great Achilles here 1 " — I answered, 
u No — it's his brother." Then says t'other one — 
" Troth, he is handsome ! What a noble man ! 
What splendid hair ! " 

Pyrg. Now, did they really say so ? 

Art. They did indeed, and begged me, both of them, 
To make you take a walk again to-day, 
That they might get another sight of you. 

Pyrg. {sighing complacently). J Tis a great nuisance being 
so very handsome ! * 

This hero gentleman has just carried off from 
Athens — by force, however, and not by the influence 
of his personal attractions — a young lady who is an 
object of tender interest to a gentleman of that city, 

* So Le Canitan Matamore, in CorneihVs ' L'lilusiou 
Comique ' — 

" Ciel qui sais comme quoi j'en suis persecute ! 
Un peu plus de repos avec iioins de beaute." 



46 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

who is at the time gone upon a voyage to Naupactus. 
His faithful slave Palestrio takes ship to follow him 
thither, but on his way falls into the hands of pirates, 
by whom he is sold, and, as it happens, taken to 
Ephesus and there purchased by Pyrgopolinices. He 
finds the lady shut up in half-willing durance in the 
Captain's house, and at once writes information of the 
fact to her Athenian lover, his master Pleusicles, who 
sails at once for Ephesus. On his arrival, he finds 
that an old friend of the family occupies the adjoining 
house : a jolly old bachelor, of thorough Epicurean 
tastes and habits, and quite ready to forward a lovers 
stratagem. By his good-natured connivance a door is 
broken through his house into the women's side of his 
neighbour's mansion, by which Pleusicles is enabled to 
hold communication with the object of his affections. 
But a servant of the Captain's, who has been specially 
charged to keep an eye upon the lady, happens to be 
running over the roof of the two houses in the pursuit 
of an escaped monkey, looks down through a skylight 
with the curiosity of his class, and is a witness of one 
of these stolen interviews between the lovers. How 
Philocomasium (for that is the lady's long Greek name*) 
has found her way into the house next door is what 
he does not understand; but there she is, and he is 
determined to tell the Captain. First, however, he 

* These Greek female names are anj'thing but euphonious to 
English ears. But we must remember that what seems to us a 
harsh termination was softened away in the Latin pronuncia- 
tion, and that in its Greek form it was a diminutive ; so that 
names ending in " ion " conveyed to their ear a pet sound, as in 
our Nellie, Bessie, &c. 



THE BRAGGADOCIO. 47 

takes into his counsels his new fellow-servant, Palestrio, 
and confides to him his discovery. Palestrio tries to 
persuade him that his eyes have deceived him, hut 
finding him ohstinately convinced of their accuracy, 
invents a story of a twin-sister, who hy a curious 
coincidence has just come to Ephesus and taken the 
house next door, where she allows a lover of her own 
to visit her. The chief fun of the piece, which is 
somewhat of a childish character, consists in the in- 
genuity with which Philocomasium, with the aid of 
Palestrio, contrives by a change of costume to play 
the double part of herself and the imaginary twin- 
sister; much to the bewilderment of the Captain's 
watchful and suspicious retainer, who is ignorant of 
the existence of the secret passage by which at her 
pleasure she flits from house to house. 

The catastrophe is brought about by the absorbing 
vanity of the military hero. He is persuaded by 
the ready Palestrio that a lady in the neighbourhood, 
of great charms and accomplishments, has fallen vio- 
lently in love with him, and that if only out of charity 
it behoves him to have compassion on her. She has a 
jealous husband, and dare not invite him to her house, 
but asks to be allowed to call upon him at his own. 
In order to have the coast quite clear, he sends oil' 
Philocomasium for a while, in charge of the trusty 
Palestrio, who willingly undertakes to escort her — 
with her mother and the twin-sister, as he thinks — 
really with her lover Pleusicles, who, in the guise of a 
shipowner, carries her off to Athens. The fate of 
the Captain is that of Falstaif, in the i Merry Wives 
of Windsor.' As soon as the love-stricken lady — who is 



48 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

only a lady's-maid employed for the occasion — is ascer- 
tained to be paying her expected visit to this pro- 
fessional Adonis, his bachelor neighbour, from next 
door, enters in the character of the jealous husband, 
with a band of stout slaves and beats him to a jelly. 

III. THE HAUNTED HOUSE (MOSTELLARIA). 

The Latin name of this play means something like 
"The Goblin;" but perhaps the English title here 
given to it will better express the nature of the plot. 
A worthy citizen of Athens has been away for three 
years on a trading voyage to Egypt, and during his 
absence his son Philolaches, though a young man of 
amiable disposition, has gone altogether wrong, kept 
very dissolute and extravagant company, and spent the 
greatest part of his father's money. In this he has been 
aided and abetted by Tranio, his valet and factotum, 
— one of those amusing rascals who seem to take delight 
in encouraging their young masters in such things, 
though they feel it is at the risk of their own backs. 

The youth is just sitting down to supper with some 
of his friends (one of whom has come to the party 
already drunk), when Tranio, who has been down to 
the harbour to buy fish, comes in with the startling in- 
telligence of the father's return from sea; he has just 
got a glimpse of him as he landed. Philolaches feels 
that the evil day has come upon him at last. His fiist 
idea naturally is to get rid of his friends, have the 
supper-table cleared away, and make things look at 
least as quiet and respectable as possible. But his 
friend Callidamates is by this time so very drunk and 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 49 

incapable that it is impossible to hope to get him safely 
off the premises in time ; especially as, in his drunken 
independence, the only notice he takes of the news is 
first to " hope the old gentleman's very well ; " secondly, 
to advise his son, if he doesn't want him, to " send 
him hack again ; " and, lastly, to offer to fight him, then 
and there. 

Philolaches. Who's that asleep there ? Wake him up, 

do, Delphium ! 
Delphium. Calliclamates ! Callidamates — wake ! {shaking 

him.) 
Call, (looking up drowsily). I am awake — all right. 

Pass us the bottle. 
Delph. Oh, do awake, pray do ! His father's come — 
From abroad, you know ! (Shakes him again) 

Call, (just opening his eyes). All right — hope 's pretty 

well. 
Phil, (angrily). He's well enough, you ass ! — I'm very 

bad. 
Call. Bad ! why, — what 's 'matter 1 
Phil. Do get up, I say, 

And go — my father's come. 

Call, (drowsily). Father's come, is he ? 

Tell him — go back again. What the deuce 's want 
here ? 
Phil, (in despair). What shall I do ? Zounds ! he'll be 
here in a minute, 
And find this drunken ass here in my company, 
And all the rest of ye. And Fve no time — 
Beginning to dig a well when you're dying of thirst, — 
That's what I'm doing ; just beginning to think 
What I'm to do, and here's my father come ! 

Tranio {looking at Call.) He's put his head down and 

gone to sleep again ! 
a. c. vol. xvi. D 



50 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

Phil. Will you get up ? {shaking him.) I say, — my father's 

here ! 
Call, {jumping up). Father here ? where ? Give me my 
slippers, somebody ! 
My sword, there ! — polish the old gentleman off in no time 

— Act ii. sc. 2. 

But Tranio proves equal to the occasion. He desires 
them all to keep quiet where they are, to let him lock 
the house up and take the key of the street-door, and 
Igo to meet his elder master with a story which he has 
Iready for him. The good citizen makes his appearance 
in the next scene, congratulating himself heartily on 
having escaped the perils of this his first — and, as he 
is determined it shall be, his last — sea voyage. 

Enter Theuropides — slaves following with his luggage. 
Tranio looking round a corner, and listening. 

Theu. I do return you hearty thanks, good Neptune, 
For letting me out of your clutches safe and sound, 
Though scarce alive ; but if from this time forward 
You catch me setting foot in your dominions, 
I give you leave — free leave — that very instant, 
To do with me — what you've just tried to do. 
A vaunt ! Anathema ! I do abjure ye 
From this same day ! {looking back towards the harbour, 

and shaking his fist). I've trusted to ye once, 
But never will I run such risk again. 

Tran. {aside). Zounds, Neptune, you've just made a 
great mistake — 
Lost such a charming opportunity ! 

Theu. Three years I've been in Egypt : here I am, 
Come home at last !— How glad they'll be to see me ! 

Tran. {aside). There's only one we had been more glad 
to see — 
The man who brought us word that you were drowned. 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 51 

[Theuropides advances to Ids own door, at which he. 
knocks, and looks up at the closed windows. Tranio 
comes forward. 

Tran. Who's this ? who ventures near this house of ours ? 

Theu. Why, this is my man Tranio ! 

Tran. O, dear master, 

O, welcome home ! I am so glad to see you — 
Are you quite well 1 

Then- Quite, as you see (knocks again). 

Tran. Thank heavens ! 

Theu. But you, — are ye all mad 1 

Tran. Why so ? 

Theu. Because 

Here you are walking about, and nobody in. 
{Knocks and kicks at the door.) Not a soul seems to hear. 

Will nobody open ? {Kicks again.) 
I shall kick the door down presently. 

Tran. {shuddering and shrieking). — — Oh ! 
Don't ye do that, dear master — don't ye, don't ye ! 

— Act ii. sc. 2. 

Then Tranio begins his story. The house is haunted. 
There is a ghost there, of a man who was murdered 
in it by the last owner for the sake of his gold, and 
buried under the floor. This ghost had come to 
young Philolaches in his sleep, nearly frightened him 
out of his senses, and warned him to quit his pre- 
mises at once. Pluto would not admit him into the 
Shades, he said, because he had not been properly 
buried, and so he was obliged to live in this house, and 
he wanted it all to himself. So they had shut it up, 
Tranio tells the father, and left the ghost in possession ; 
and, for the present, his son is gone into the country. 
Just in the agony of the tale, a noise is heard inside 



52 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

— the party there are not keeping so quiet as they 
ought. 

Tran. (pretending to be frightened, and catching his 
master by the arm.) 
Hush-sh ! (Listening.) 

Then, (trembling). Eh ! what was it ? 
Tran. (looking aghast at Then) Was it him, d'ye 
think? 
(Listening at the key -hole) I heard a knocking. 

Then. Eh ! my blood runs cold ! 

Are the dead men coming from Acheron to fetch me ? 
Tran. (aside). Those fools will spoil it all, if they're 

not quiet. 
Then. What are you saying to yourself, sir — eh ? 
Tran. Go from the door, sir, pray — run, do, I beg 

you! 
Theu. (looking round in terror). Where shall I run to ? 

why don't you run yourself 'I 
Tran. (solemnly). Well — I've no fear — I keep an honest 

conscience. 
Callidamates (inside). Hallo there, Tranio ! (Theuro- 

pides runs off.) 
Tran. (going close to the door, and whispering). Don't 
call me, you fool ! 
(Aloud, as to the ghost.) Don't threaten me — it wasn't / 
kicked the door. 
Theu. (putting his head round the corner). dear ! 

what is it ? why do you shake so, Tranio ? 
Tran. (Rooking round). Was it you called me 1 — Weil, 
so help us heaven, 
I thought it was the dead man scolding me 
For making all that rapping at his door. 
But why do you stand there ? why don't you do 
What I just told you ? 

Theu. (clasping his hands). dear ! what was that ? 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 53 

Tran. Run, run ! don't look behind you — and cover your 
head up ! 
[Theuropides runs off 'with his cloak over his head. 

— Act ii. sc. 2. 

There may not be very much wit in the scene, but 
it is a fair specimen of the style in which Plautus 
seems to have excelled. It is full of biutle and spirit, 
and would act, as is the case with so many of his 
scenes, far better than it reads. If any reader will im- 
agine the two characters in the hands of say Mr Keeley 
and Mr Buckstone, he will perhaps admit that it would 
be sufficiently laughable even if it were put exactly as 
it is upon the stage of a modern minor theatre. 

The " Ghost " is left, for the present, in undisturbed 
possession. But Tranio's plan is nearly frustrated at 
the outset ; for, as he is following his master down the 
street, they meet a money-lender to whom the son is 
indebted, and who is come to demand his interest. 
The old gentleman overhears the conversation between 
the creditor and Tranio, w T ho vainly tries to prevent 
him from bawling out his complaints of non-payment. 
He succeeds, however, in persuading the father that 
his son has only been borrowing in order to pay the 
deposit-money upon the purchase of a house (which 
he has been driven to buy in consequence of the 
Ghost's occupation of the old one), and which is, as he 
assures him, a most excellent bargain. Theuropides 
is naturally anxious to see the new house at once ; 
and Tranio, almost in despair, declares that it is that of 
their next-door neighbour, Simo, whom he sees just 
coming cut of his door on his way to the Forum. 
Tranio goes up to this person and requests permission 



oi THE COMEDIES OF PLALTCS. 

for his master to look over the house, which he wishes 
to copy, as a model of admirable contrivance, in some 
new buildings which he is about to make on his own 
ground. The owner, much flattered, begs them to 
walk over it "just as though it were their own;" an 
expression which rather amuses Theuropides, as he is 
about to make it his own in reality by paying the rest 
of the purchase-money. Tranio adroitly whispers to 
him not to say a word about the sale, " from motives of 
delicacy :" poor Simo, he assures him, has been obliged 
to part with his family property owing to reduced cir- 
cumstances, and the whole transaction is naturally a 
sore subject to him. Theuropides takes the hint at 
once, praising his servant at the same time for his 
thoughtfulness and good feeling. He is charmed with 
the house, with the terms of the purchase, and with 
the business-like habits of his excellent son. 

But the father's dream is speedily dispelled. He 
meets in the street, near his own door, a slave of the 
young gentleman who is at this moment sleeping off 
his debauch in his son's apartments, and w*ho lias come, 
in obedience to the prudent orders issued beforehand 
upon such occasions, to convey his master home. 
Theuropides would fain persuade him that there is some 
mistake ; he must have come to the wrong house ; this 
has been shut up and unoccupied for some time ; and 
his son Philolaches is quite unlikely to keep the kind 
of company to which this roysterer belongs. But the 
slave knows his business better, and in defence of his 
own assertions tears the veil somewhat rudely from 
the old gentleman's eyes. If he could be supposed to 
have any doubts remaining, they are removed by a 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 55 

second interview with his neighbour Sinio, who laughs 
at the notion of his house having been sold without 
himself being aware of it. It only remains for the 
deluded father to take vengeance on Tranio, and this 
he will set about at once. One favour he will ask of 
Simo — " Lend me a couple of stout slaves, and a good 
whip or two ;" — and, thus provided, he goes in quest of 
the culprit. 

Tranio discovers that all is lost except his spirit. 
That still keeps up : and he appears to have propped 
it with an extra cup or two. His soliloquy, in the 
kands of a good actor, would no doubt be effective. 
He has succeeded in getting the revellers out of the 
house before the angry father comes into it ; but they 
have now lost all faith in him as an adviser, and what 
step he is to take next is by no means clear even to 
himself. 

tranio (solus). 

The man who loses heart when things go crooked, 

In my opinion, he's not worth a rap — 

What a " rap " means, now, blest if I can tell ! 

Well — when the master bid me fetch the young one — 

Out of the country (laughs to himself), ha, ha ! Well, [ 

went — 
Not into the country — to the garden-gate ; 
And brought out the whole lot of 'em — male and female. 
When I had thus safely withdrawn my troops 
Out of their state of siege, I called a council — 
A council of war, you know — of my fellow-rascals; 
And their very first vote was to turn me out of it. 
So I called another council — of myself; 
And I am doing — what I understand 



56 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

Most people do in awkward circumstances — 
Make 'em as much more awkward as they can. 

— Act v. sc. 1. 

His master comes to look for him, followed by 
two slaves carrying whips and fetters, whom he keeps 
in hiding for the present in the background ; but 
Tranio, quite aware of what is in store for him, takes 
refuge at the family altar, and will listen to no per- 
suasions to come away. From this vantage-ground 
he holds an argument with his master ; persuades 
him that his prodigal son has done nothing out of 
the way — only what other young men of spirit do ; 
and when Theuropides vents his wrath against such a 
shameful piece of deception in a slave, gravely advises 
him to hold his tongue at all events on that point. 
"With his grey hairs, he surely ought to have been 
wiser; if people once come to know how he has 
allowed himself to be duped, they will infallibly work 
him into a plot for the next new comedy. 

Tranio gets off at last, by the intercession of Callida- 
mates, who has sobered himself sufficiently to come for- 
ward and express repentance on the part of his young 
friend, and to entreat that all may be forgotten and 
forgiven ; offering, handsomely enough, to pay off out 
of his own pocket the little debt to the money-lender. 
Tranio assures his master that he will not lose much 
by forgiving him this time — the whipping which he is 
longing to give now need only be a pleasure deferred, 
inasmuch as he is quite certain to do something to 
deserve one to-morrow. Which very characteristic 
witticism brings down the curtain. 

Upon this comedy Eegnard, who perhaps ranks next 



THE SHIPWRECK. 57 

to Moliere of the French comic dramatists, founded 
his play, in one act, of 'Le Betonr Ixnprevu;' and 
Fielding's ' Intriguing Chambermaid ' is little more 
than a translation of it. But Dunlop remarks that 
neither the French nor the English adapters have 
availed themselves of the hint which Plautus left for 
them, of a telling scene in which the previous occupant 
of the* " Haunted House " might be charged by the 
excited father with the murder of his imaginary guest. 

IV. THE SHIPWRECK (RUDEXs). 

This is a play of a different character in many re- 
spects, and comes nearer to what we should call a melo- 
dramatic spectacle than anything else. The Latin title 
is simply " The Rope " — given to it because the rope 
of a fisherman's net is an important instrument in the 
denouement. But the whole action turns upon a ship- 
wreck, and this is the title preferred by some English 
authorities. 

The pr< ;ue, which is in a higher strain than Plau- 
tus commonly aspires to, is spoken in the character of 
Arcturus, — the constellation whose rising and setting 
was supposed to have very much to do with storms. 
The costume in which he appears is evidently brilliant 
and characteristic. 

Of his high realm, who rules the earth and sea 

And all mankind, a citizen am I. 

Lo, as you see, a bright and shining star, 

Revolving ever in unfailing course 

Here and in heaven : Arcturus am I hight. 

By night I shine in heaven, amidst the gods ; 



58 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

I walk unseen with men on earth by day. 
So, too, do other stars step from their spheres, 
Down to this lower world ; so willeth Jove, 
Ruler of gods and men ; he sends us forth 
Each on our several paths throughout all lands, 
To note the ways of men, and all they do ; * 
It" they be just and pious ; if their wealth 
Be well employed, or squandered harmfully ; 
Who in a false suit use false witnesses ; 
Who by a perjured oath forswear their debts ; — 
Their names do we record and bear to Jove. 
So learns He day by day what ill is wrought 
By men below ; who seek to gain their cause 
By perjury, who wrest the law to wrong ; 
Jove's court of high appeal rehears the plaint, 
And mulcts them tenfold for the unjust decree. 
In separate tablets doth he note the good. 
And though the wicked in their hearts have said, 
He can be soothed with gifts and sacrifice, 
They lose their pains and cost, for that the god 
Accepts no offering from a perjured hand. 

After this fine exordium, so unlike the ordinary tone 
of the writer that we may be sure he is here translat- 
ing from a great original, the prologue goes on to set 
forth the story of the piece. The speaker gives the 
audience some description of the opening scene, and a 
key to the characters. It is the tradition of the com- 

* The same idea occurs in a well-known passage in Homer : — 
(l Gods in the garb of strangers to and fro 
Wander the cities, and men's ways discern ; 
Yea, through the wide earth in all shapes they go, 
Changed, yet the same, and with their own eyes learn 
How live the sacred laws, who hold them, and who spurn." 

Odyss, xvii. 485 (Worsley's Transl.) 



THE SHIPWRECK. 59 

mentators, and the wording of the prologue corroborates 
it. that the mounting of this piece, both in scenery and 
machinery, was very costly and elaborate. It opens, 
like Shakspeare's ' Tempest/ with a storm — or rather 
on the morning after.* The sea forms the background; 
on one side is the city of Cyrene in the distance, on the 
other, a temple of Venus, with a cottage near. This 
cottage is the residence of Daemones, once a citizen of 
Athens, but who, having lost his property and met 
with other troubles, has left his native country and 
settled down here in retirement. He and his slaves 
are come out to look to the repairs of their cottage, 
which has suffered by the storm. A boat appears 
struggling through the waves in the distance, which, 
as it gets nearer, is seen to contain two girls, who after 
great danger (described by one of the slaves, who is 
watching, in a passage which a good actor would no 
doubt make sufficiently effective) make good their land- 
ing among the rocks, and meet at last upon the stage, 
each having thought the other lost. One of them is 
Palaestra : a free-born girl of Athens, but stolen and 
sold, as she tells us, in her infancy. Pleusidippus, a 
young Athenian, had seen her at Cyrene, fallen violent- 
ly in love with her, and made proposals to the slave 
merchant for her ransom. But that worthy individual, 
thinking that he could make a better bargain for such 
wares in Sicily, had just set sail for that island, carry- 
ing Palaestra and her fellow-captives with him, when 
the whole party are wrecked here on the coast, just 
going out of harbour. 

* Possibly the storm was represented on the stage during the 
delivery of the prologue, before the action of the piece began. 



60 THIS COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

The two girls, drenched as they are, take refuge in 
the Temple of Venus, where they ask the protection 
of the Priestess. That good lady is the very model of 
an ecclesiastical red-tapist. Though they tell their sad 
story, she ohjects that they ought to have come in the 
proper garb of supplicants — in a white robe, and 
bringing with them a victim ; and is hardly satisfied 
with poor Palaestra's explanation of the great difficulty 
which a young woman who had narrowly escaped 
drowning herself would find in carrying a white dress 
and a fat lamb with her. 

Labrax, the slave-dealer, whom every one hoped had 
been drowned according to his deserts, has also escaped 
from the wreck and got ashore. Not without the loss, 
however, of all his money, which has gone to the 
bottom, and with it a small case of jewellery, family 
tokens belonging to Palaestra, of which he had obtained 
possession. He hears that the two girls who are his 
property are hidden in the temple, and proceeds to drag 
them thence by force. He is met there, however, by a 
servant of young Pleusidippus, who is in search of his 
master, and who runs to Daemones's cottage for help. 
The owner comes out with two stout slaves, rescues 
Palaestra and her companion, and leaves Labrax in 
custody, the slaves standing over him with cudgels, 
until the case can be investigated. Pleusidippus soon 
arrives upon the scene, his servant having hurried to 
inform him of the state of affairs — that his dear 
Palaestra has escaped from the wreck, and taken 
refuge in the temple, from which Labrax would have 
dragged her but for the timely interference of a very 
worthy old gentleman. The young man hauls the 



THE SHIPWRECK. 61 

slave-dealer off, with very little ceremony, before the 
nearest magistrate, to answer both for his breach of con- 
tract and his attempt at sacrilege. And with this 
scene ends the third act of the drama. 

Then there is an interval of time before the com- 
mencement of the fourth act. Gripus, one of Dsemones's 
slaves, has been out fishing. He has taken no fish ; 
but has had a haul which will prove, he hopes, to be of 
more importance. He has brought up in his net a 
heavy wallet, and feels certain that it contains gold ; 
enough, no doubt, to purchase his freedom, and to 
make him a rich man for the rest of his life besides. 
His soliloquy, as to what he will do with all his riches, 
reminds us not a little of the dream of Alnaschar. 

Now, this shall be my plan — I'm quite determined : 
I'll do it cunningly ; I'll go to my master, 
With just a little money from time to time, 
To buy my freedom : then, when I am free, 
I'll buy a farm — I'll build a house — I'll have 
A great many slaves. Then I shall make a fortune 
By my big merchant-ships. I shall be a prince, 
And talk to princes. Then I'll build a yacht, 
Just for a fancy, and like Stratonicus 
Sail round the seaport towns * When my renown 
Spreads far and wide, then — then, I'll found a city ; 
I'll call it " Gripe," in memory of my name 
And noble acts ; I'll found an empire there. 
I do resolve great things within this breast {striking his 
chest) ; 

* Stratonicus was treasurer to Philip and Alexander, and 
probably thought himself a greater man than either of his 
masters. The allusion to Alexandria in "Gripe " is obvious. 



62 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

But for the present, I must hide my windfall. 

(Takes his break fad oat of his scrip, and looks at it.) 
But more's the pity that so great a man 
Must for to-day have such a sorry breakfast ! 

— Act iv. sc. 2. 

Before he has time to hide his booty, Trachalio, the 
slave of Pleusidippus, who has been watching all 
Gripus' s proceedings, comes up, and wants .to claim 
half-shares in the contents. The dialogue between the 
two has some amusing points, though it is rather too 
much spun out for modern taste. Trachalio declares 
that lie knows the person to whom the wallet formerly 
belonged ; Gripns replies that he knows to w 7 hom it 
belongs now, "which is of much more importance — it 
belongs to him. All that he catches belongs to him, 
clearly \ nobody ever disputed it before. Trachalio argues 
that this is not a fish. It is a fish, declares Gripus , 
"all's fish that comes to the net" — using our pro- 
verb in almost so many words. This sort of fish 
doesn't grow in the sea, says the other. Gripus de- 
clares that it does — only the species, he is sorry to say, 
is very seldom caught. He is a fisherman, and knows 
a good deal more about fish, he should hope, than a 
landsman. Trachalio protests it is with him a matter 
of conscience : since he has seen the wallet fished up, 
unless he goes and tells the owner, he shall be as great 
a thief as Gripus ; but he is willing to share that re- 
sponsibility, provided he shares the prize. They very 
nearly come to blows about it ; but at last Trachalio 
proposes to submit the dispute to arbitration ; and as 
the cottage of Dsemones is close at hand, they agree that 
he. shall decide as to the disposal of the property — 



THE SHIPWRECK. 63 

Trachalio not being aware of Gripus's connection with 
the old gentleman, and Gripus hoping that his master 
will surely give an award in his favour. 

When the wallet is opened, it is found to contain, 
besides valuable property belonging to Labrax, the 
precious casket containing Palaestra's family relics : and, 
by desire of Psemones, she describes the articles which 
ought to be in it, in order to prove her claim to its 
ownership. To his joy and surprise, one of these 
relics, a small toy implement, bears his own name, and 
another that of his wife. Palaestra is their long-lost 
daughter, stolen in her childhood, and thus restored. 
Of course she is handed over to her lover Pleusidippus, 
a free woman. 

The disposal of the claims to the rest of the wallet's 
contents hardly meets our notions of dramatic justice. 
Paamones retains in his possession the prize which 
poor Gripus has fished up, in order to restore it to its 
owner ; not only without any hint of salvage-money, 
but with the addition of a long moral lecture to his 
slave upon honesty. This is all very well ; but the 
subsequent proceedings serve to show that if it was 
a characteristic of the slave to be always ready to cheat 
his master, the master had also his peculiar idea of 
honesty as between himself and his slave. Gripus 
meets Labrax lamenting for his lost wallet, and as 
a last hope of making something out of his good luck, 
agrees to inform him of the whereabouts of the missing 
treasure for the consideration of a talent of good money 
paid down. Psemones, when he comes to hear of the 
arrangement, ratifies it so far as this : Gripus is his 
property ; therefore, what is Gripus's is his. I abrax 



64 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

has to pay the talent into the hands of Dsemones, who 
applies half to the ransom of his daughter's friend and 
companion in misfortune, and allows the other half as 
the price of Gripus's freedom. The reply which that 
personage makes previously to his master's lecture on 
morality seems to show that he took it for about as 
much as it was worth. 

Ah. ! so IVe heard the players on the stage 

Eehearse the very finest moral sentiments, 

And with immense applause ; showing quite clearly 

All that a wise man ought to do : and then 

The audience would go home, and not a soul of 'em 

Would follow that grand preaching in their practice.* 

The play called Cistellaria — " The Casket " — 
turns upon the same incidents — the loss of a daughter 
when young, and her discovery by her parents by means 
of a casket of trinkets which had been attached to her 
person, t The copies of this play are very imperfect, and 
there is a want of interest in the scenes. One passage, 
in which Halisca, the slave who has dropped the casket 
in the street and returns to look for it, appeals path- 

* A portion of this comedy appears to have been performed 
as an afterpiece in the Dormitory at Westminster in 1798, when 
a very clever "Fisherman's Chorus," written in rhyming Latin, 
by the well-known " Jemmy Dodd," then Usher, was introduced. 
— See Lusus Alt. Westm., i. 177. 

f Parents had no hesitation in "exposing" a child whose 
birth was for any reason inconvenient ; leaving it to die, or be 
picked up by some charitable stranger, as might be. But it was 
held a sin to do this without leaving something valuable on the 
child's person : and jewels, or other articles by which it might 
possibly be recognised afterwards, were often fastened to its 
clothes. 



THE CAPTIVES. 65 

etically to the audience, to know whether any of them 
have picked it up, and will restore it, and so save her 
from a whipping, may remind a modern reader of Mo- 
liere's Harpagon looking among the audience for the 
thief of his money. The despairing taunt with which 
she turns away, after pausing for some reply — 

" 'Tis no use asking — there's not one among ye 
Does aught but laugh at a poor woman's troubles " — 

is strong presumptive evidence that the spectators at a 
Eoman comedy were almost exclusively men. 

V. — THE CAPTIVES. 

This pretty little drama is quite of a different com- 
plexion from the rest. The author tells us, in his 
prologue, that we are not to expect to find here any of 
the old stock characters of comedy, who, as he is free 
to confess, are not always of the most reputable kind. 
The interest is, in fact, rather pathetic than comic, and 
the plot is of the simplest kind. Almost the only 
comic element is supplied by the speaker of the pro- 
logue, who has a joke or two for the audience, of a 
very mild and harmless kind. The principal characters 
in the play appear to have been grouped in a kind of 
tableau on the stage while th<3 prologue was delivered, 
in this as in some other plays. The prologist informs 
the audience that the two captives who stand in chains 
on his right and left, are Philocrates, a young noble of 
Elis, and his slave Tyndarus. There is war between 
Elis and the iEtolians ; and these two prisoners, re- 
cently taken in battle, have been purchased amongst 
others by Hegio, a wealthy citizen of iEtolia, whose 

a. c. vol. xvi. E 



66 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

own son is now, by the fortune of war, a prisoner in 
Elis. The father is sparing no cost in purchasing such 
captives of rank and birth as are brought to iEtolia and 
sold as slaves, in the hope of being able thus to effect 
an exchange for his son. He feels the loss of this son 
all the more, because his younger brother was carried 
off in his infancy by a revengeful slave, and he has 
never seen him since. " Do you understand, now % " 
says the speaker to the audience — " I hear a gentleman 
standing up at the back of the gallery say ' no.' Then 
come a little nearer, sir, if you please ; I'm not going 
to crack my voice in bawling to you at that distance. 
And if you've not money enough to pay for a seat, 
you've money enough to walk out, which I recommend 
you to do. And now — you gentlemen that can afford 
to pay for your seats, — have the goodness to listen, 
while I continue my story." He goes on, after the 
fashion which has been noticed as common in such 
prologues, to sketch in brief the whole plot. He begs, 
however, to assure the audience, confidentially, that 
they need not be alarmed because there is a war 
going on in this play between Elis and .ZEtolia. He 
promises them— quite in the spirit of Bottom and his 
company of players — that they " will leave the killing 
out ; " all the battles shall be fought behind the scenes. 
It would never do for them, he says, a company of 
poor comedians, to encroach upon the domain of tragedy. 
If any gentleman present wants a fight, he must get 
one up on his own account — and it shall go hard but 
that the present speaker will find a match for him, if 
he be so inclined. He concludes by asking their favour- 
able verdict in the dramatic contest : — 



THE CAPTIVES. 67 

And so I make my bow. Sirs, fare ye well ; 

Be gentle judges of our comedy, 

As ye are — doubtless — : valorous hearts in war. 

The interest of the drama lies in the generous devotion 
of the slave Tyn darns to his young master. Hegio 
has ascertained that his captive Philocrates is the 
only son of a man of great wealth, and hopes that by 
sending a message to the father he may enlist his 
interest at Elis in making search for his own son 
among the iEtolian prisoners there, and sending him 
home in exchange for Philocrates. But this latter has, 
at the suggestion of Tyndarus, exchanged clothes with, 
him, and the slave, w T ho is nearly of the same age, and 
of noble presence, personates the master. Under this 
mistake Hegio sends the slave (as he thinks) to Elis to 
negotiate there wdth the father of Philocrates the re- 
lease of his son. But it is really the young noble who 
is sent, and Tyndarus who personates him remains a 
prisoner in his place. There is a fine passage in w^hich 
the disguised slave appeals to Hegio for generous treat- 
ment during his captivity. 

As free a man as was your son, till now, 

TVas I ; like him, the hapless chance of war 

Bobbed me of liberty ; he stands a slave 

Among my people, even as here I stand 

Fettered before you. There is One in heaven, 

Be sure of it, who sees and knows all things 

That all men do. As you shall deal with me, 

So will He deal with him. He will show grace 

To him who showeth grace ; He will repay 

Evil for evil. (Hegio appears moved.) Weep you for 

your son ? 
So in my home my father weeps for me. 



68 THE COMEDIES OF PLA UTUS. 

The parting between Tyndarus and his master gives 
rise to another scene which would be highly effective 
in the hands of good actors. The two young men had 
been brought up together, it must be remembered, from 
childhood, had played the same games, gone to the 
same school, and served in the same campaign. There 
is an equality of feeling between them, which even the 
miserable conditions of slavery have not been able 
to prevent. Philocrates, speaking as Tyndarus, asks 
the latter if he has any message to send home to his 
father. 

Tyndarus (as Philocrates). Say I am well ; and tell him 
this, good Tyndarus, 
We two have lived in sweetest harmony, 
Of one accord in all things ; never yet 
Have you been faithless, never I unkind. 
And still, in this our strait, yon have bean true 
And loyal to the last, through woe and want, 
Have never failed me, nor in will nor deed. 
This when your father hears, for such good service 
To him and to his son, he cannot choose 
But give you liberty. I will insure it, 
If I go free from hence. 'Tis you alone, 
Your help, your kindness, your devoted service 
Shall give me to my parents' arms again. 

Philocrates (as Tyndarus). I have done this : I'm glad 
you should remember ; 
And you have well deserved it : (emphatically) for if I 
Were in my turn to count up all the kindness 
That you have shown to me, day would grow night 
Before the tale were told. Were you my slave, 
You could have shown no greater zeal to serve me. 

—Act ii. sc. 3. 



THE CAPTIVES. 69 

Hegio is touched by the affection shown by the young 
pair ; and Tyndarus is treated as liberally as a prisoner 
can be. But there is another prisoner of war of whom 
Hegio has heard, who knows this young man Philo- 
crates and his family, and is anxious to have an inter- 
view with him, which Hegio good-naturedly allows. 
This man at once detects the imposture ; and though 
Tyndarus attempts for a time (in a scene which must be 
confessed to be somewhat tedious) to maintain his 
assumed character in spite of the other's positive asser- 
tions, he is convicted of the deception, and ordered by 
the indignant Hegio to be loaded with heavy chains, 
and taken to work in the stone-quarries ; which would 
seem to have been as terrible a place of punishment in 
Greece as we know they were in Sicily. In vain does 
Tyndarus plead his duty to his master : in vain does 
he appeal to Hegio's feelings as a father — 

Tyn. Think, now — if any slave who called you master 
Had done this for your son, how you had thanked him ! 
Would you have grudged him liberty, or no ? 
Would you have loved him above all the rest ? 
Nay — answer me. 

He. I grant it. 

Tyn. Oh, why then 

Are you thus wroth with me for doing likewise ? 

He. Your faith to him was treachery to me. 

Tyn. What ! would you ask that one brief night and day 
Should give you claim on a poor captive's service 
Just fallen within your power, to cancel his 
With whom I lived and whom I loved from childhood ? 

Heg. Then seek your thanks from him.— Lead him 
away. 

In vain does his fellow-captive, whose evidence has 



70 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

brought down Hegio's wrath upon hini, plead on his 
behalf. Tyndarus is dragged off to the quarries, pre- 
serving his calmness of demeanour to the last. 

Well — death will come — thy threats can reach no further ; 

And though I linger to a long old age, 

Life's span of suffering is hut brief. — Farewell ! 

I might find plea to curse thee — but — farewell ! 

— Act iii. sc. 5. 

The denouement comes rapidly. There is a long sup- 
posed interval between the third and the two last 
brief acts of the drama, — which in a modern play 
would be rather termed scenes. Philocrates returns 
from Elis, and brings with him Hegio's sou Philopole- 
mus, whom he has ransomed from captivity. But he has 
not forgotten his faithful Tyndarus, and has come in 
person to insure his liberation. But this is not all. He 
has also met with the runaway slave who, twenty years 
ago, had stolen from his home the younger son of 
Hegio. When this man is now cross-examined by his 
old master, it is discovered that he had fled to Elis, and 
there sold the child to the father of Philocrates, who 
had made a present of him to his own boy, as was not un- 
usual, to be a kind of live toy and humble playfellow. 
It is this very Tyndarus, who now stands before his 
father loaded with chains and haggard with suffering 
of that father's infliction. The noble nature displayed 
by the captive is explained by his noble blood. 

JSfo one will deny that it is a pretty little drama, 
with a good deal of quiet pathos in it. But (if we have 
the piece complete, which may be doubtful) whatever 
pathos a modern audience would find in these last 



THE TWO MENjECIIML 71 

scenes would be due to such force of expression and 
by-play as could be thrown into them by clever actors ; 
they are very bald indeed in the reading. The claim 
which the speaker of the brief epilogue makes for the 
play, that its morality is of the purest and simplest, is 
well deserv r ed. It contains, strange to say, no female 
character whatever. For these and other reasons ' The 
Captives,' in spite of the lack of comic element, used to 
be a very favourite selection with English schoolmasters, 
in the days when the performance of a Latin comedy 
by the elder scholars seems to have formed part of the 
annual routine in most of our large schools. Yet, strange 
to say, there is no record of it having ever been per- 
formed at Westminster. Perhaps the absence of those 
distinctly comic characters and situations which are 
made so telling in the annual performance by the 
Queen's Scholars has been the reason of its neglect. 

VI. THE TWO MEN^CHMI. 

This comedy deserves notice not so much for its 
own merits — for whatever they might have appeared 
to a Roman audience, they are not highly appreciable by 
our taste — but because upon it Shakspeare founded 
Ins * Comedy of Errors.' Tf appears to have been the 
only work of Plautus wi ,li had at that time ..been 
translated into English, which may account for its being 
the only one from which Shakspeare seems to have 
borrowed. The plot is improbable in the highest 
degree, though admitting some farcical situations. 
It all turns upon the supposed resemblance between 
two twin-brothers — so strong as to deceive their 



72 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

servants, their nearest friends, and even their wives. 
Antipholus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse 
are hut reproductions of Mensechmus of Epidamnus 
and Mensechmus Sosicles — the twins of Plautus's 
comedy, who were separated in their youth, and 
whose marvellous likeness, which makes it impossible 
to distinguish between them, leads to the series of 
ludicrous mistakes and entanglements which are at 
last set right by their personal meeting on the stage. 
Shakspeare has added the pair of Dromios, who, like 
their masters, are duplicates of each other : thereby 
increasing the broad fun of the piece, such as it is, 
and not materially increasing the improbability. The 
use of masks upon the Roman stage made the pre- 
sentation of the likeness comparatively easy ; whereas 
in the English play all has to depend upon exact 
similarity of costume and the making up of the faces 
of the two actors, which is not always satisfactory. 
The incidents in the Latin play are not so amusing as 
in Shakspeare's version of it, and the morals much 
more objectionable. 

VII. AMPHITRYON. 

' Amphitryon • is also founded on a famous case of 
mistaken identity. It is termed by Plautus a " tragi- 
comedy; " which does not mean that there is anything 
in it to which we should apply the word " tragic/' 
but merely that the introduction of gods amongst the 
characters gives it some of the features of classic 
tragedy. In saying that it is a dramatic version 
of the myth of Jupiter and Alcmena, enough has 
been said to indicate that the morality in this case 



AMPBITRYOX. 73 

is that common to pagan mythology. This did not 
prevent it from being acted at Westminster so late 
as 1792. There are well-known French and English 
imitations of it: the ' Amphitryon' of Moliere and 
1 The Two Sosias ' of Dry den. It must be said, at 
least, in favour of the great French dramatist, that the 
morality in his play is higher than that of the original. 
'Amphitryon/ however, has some wit, which is more 
than can be well said for the ' Mensechmi.' Here, too, 
it is possible that we have the original of the two 
Dromios in Shakspeare's comedy. For, as Jupiter has 
assumed the character and likeness of Amphitryon, so 
he has directed Mercury to put on the resemblance of 
Sosia, Amphitryon's body-slave. The scene in which 
poor Sosia, sent by his master (who has just returned 
from his campaign) to announce his arrival to his wife 
Alcmena, is met at the door by his double in the 
person of Mercury, is very comically drawn. It has 
the defect of being, at least to our modern taste, some- 
what too prolonged, and only a portion of it can be 
given here. Mercury insists upon it that he is the 
true and original Sosia, gives the other a drubbing as 
an impudent impostor, and threatens to give him a 
worse if he does not at once take himself off. Sosia 
becomes extremely puzzled as to his own identity when 
his rival, in reply to his questions, shows an intimate 
knowledge of all his master's movements during the 
late campaign, and especially in the matter of a gold 
cup presented to him out of the spoils, which is 
secured in a casket under Amphitryon's own seal— 
which seal, however, this duplicate Sosia can describe 
perfectly. 



74 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

Sosia {aside). He beats me there. I must look out, it 
seems, 
For a new name. Now where on earth could this fellow 
Have been, to see all that 1 Fll have him yet ; 
Things that I did by myself, with no one near — 
What I did in the tent — it can't be possible 
He'll tell me that. {Aloud.) Now look — if you be Sosia, 
What was I doing in my master's tent, 
That day they'd such hard fighting in the front ? 
Come — tell me that, my friend — and I'll give in. 

Mercury (slily). There was a cask of wine : I filled a 
pitcher — 

Sos. {to himself). He's not far out. 

Mer. Filled it with good red wine — 

As honest stuff as ever grew in grape. 

Sos. Marvellous ! — unless this chap was in the cask ! — 
Fact — I did fill the pitcher — and drank it too. 

Mer. How now ? have I convinced you I am Sosia ? 

Sos. {puzzled). D'ye say Tm not ? 

Mer. How can you be, if I am ? 

Sos. {half crying). I swear by Jove I am Sosia — it's no lie. 

Mer. I swear by Mercury it is : Jove won't believe you ; 
He'd trust my word far sooner than your oath. 

Sos. Who am I then, I ask you, if not Sosia 1 

Mer. That I can't tell you — but you can't be Sosia, 
So long as I am : when I've done with the name, 
Then you may take it. Now be off with you, 
Name or no name, unless you want a thrashing. 

Sos. Upon my life, now that I look at him, 
And recollect myself — {I take a peep 
Into my master's glass occasionally) 

It strikes me that there is an uncommon likeness. {Ex- 
amines Mercury furtively.) 
The broad-brimmed hat and surcoat — just the same ; 
He looks as like me as I do myself ! 
Legs — feet — proportions — short- cropped hair— bull-neck — 



AMPIIIT11Y0X. 75 

Eyes — nose — lips — cheeks — the very chin and beard- 

The whole of him is me ! the very ditto ! 

I wonder whether he's got whip-marks on his back — 

If so, the copy's perfect* {Cogitating.) Still — it seems, 

When I consider on't, I must be I : 

I'm the same man I was ; I know my master — 

I know his house, — there 'tis. I've got my senses ; 

(Pinching himself.) And I can feel. Xo ; I will not 

believe 
A word this fellow says. I'll knock again. {Goes up to 
the door.) 

Mer. {rushing up). Hallo ! where now ? 

Sos. Home, to be sure. 

Mer. Be off— 

Be off like lightning, if you'd keep whole bones ! 

Sos. Mayn't I give master's message to his lady ? 

Mer. To his — by all means ; only not to ours : 
If you provoke me more, I'll break your head. 

Sos. (running aivay). No — no ! I'll go! Poor devil that 
I am ! 
Where did I lose myself? when was I changed ? 
How did I lose my corporal capacity 1 
Did I forget myself, when I went abroad, 
And leave myself at home here, by mistake ? 
For he's got what was me, there's no doubt of it ; 
All the outside, I mean, that I used to have. 

* Moliere has improved upon this passage, in the scene in 
which Sosia tells his master of the beating which he has just re- 
ceived from his own double, and how he was at last convinced 
that this latter was the real man : — 

' ( Longtemps d'imposteur j'ai trait e ce rnoi-meme ; 
Mais a me recomiattre enfin ii m'a force : 
J'ai vu que c'etait moi, sans aucune strata^eme ; 
Pes pieds jusq'a la tete il est cunime moi fait. — - 
Beau, l'air noble, bieu pris, les nianieres charmautes ! " 

— Am pint., act ii. sc. 1. 



76 THE COMEDIES OF PLUATCS. 

Well — I'll go back again and tell my master: 
Perhaps he won't own me ! The gods grant he don't ! 
I shall be free then even if I'm nobody. 

— Act i. sc. 1. 

The scene in which the pilot of the ship is unable 
to decide between the false Amphitryon and the true, 
when at last they are brought upon the stage together, 
is probably only a u restoration " of the mutilated work 
of Plautus. Moliere has substituted Sosia for the 
pilot, and makes him decide in favour of the false pre- 
tender. The convincing argument which confirms him 
in this decision has passed into a proverb, better 
known perhaps in itself than in its context. Jupiter, 
in his assumed character of Amphitryon, is made to 
reserve the disputed identity for the verdict of the 
Thebans in full assembly : meanwhile he invites all 
the company present to dinner : — 

" Sosia. Je ne me trompais, Messieurs, ce mot termine 
Toute 1' irresolution; 
Le veritable Amphitryon 
Est 1' Amphitryon oil Ton dine."* 

VIII. THE POT OF GOLD (aULULATUA). 

The prologue to this comedy is spoken in the char- 
acter of the " Lar Familiaris," as the Eomans called him 
— a sort of familiar spirit supposed to be attached to 
every Eoman household, who had his own little altar 

* Dunlop shows, however, that this is really borrowed from 
an older comedy on the same subject by Rotrou — ' Les Deux 
Sosies ' — which the later author has laid under contribution 
in other scenes. Sosia' s words in Rotrou's play are — "Point, 
point d' Amphitryon ou. Ton ne dine point." 



THE POT OF GOLD, 77 

near the family hearth, and whose business it was, if 
duly cultivated, to look after the family fortunes, — a 
private " Bobin Goodfellow." He informs the audience 
that the owners of the establishment over which he 
presides at present have been a generation of misers. 
The grandfather had buried under the hearth a " Pot 
of Gold," intrusting the secret only to him, the Lar, 
and praying him to see to its safe keeping ; and too 
covetous, even at his death, to disclose this secret to 
his son. The son was rather worse than his father, 
grudging the Lar his sacrifices even more than the old 
man had ; and therefore, the Lar saw no good reason 
for discovering the treasure to him. And now r the 
grandson, Euclio, is as bad as either father or grand- 
father. But he has a daughter ; rather a nice young 
woman, the Lar considers : she is constantly paying 
him little attentions, bringing incense, and wine, and 
garlands, and suchlike, to dress his altar : and as the 
Lar must have seen a good deal of her, and the audi- 
ence is never allowed to see her at all, they have to take 
his word for her attractions. She will be expecting a 
husband soon : and the family guardian has fixed upon 
one for her — Lyconides, nephew to one of their next- 
door neighbours, Megadorus. But as he has some 
reason to know that the young man would not be ac- 
ceptable to her father, he will contrive that the uncle 
shall ask the girl in marriage for himself, and after- 
wards resign in his nephew's favour. And he has 
made known to Euclio the secret of the buried treasure, 
in the hope that out of it he wall provide a liberal 
dowry for the young lady who is so zealous in her 
household devotions. 



78 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

But Euclio lias no intention of using the gold in that 
or in any other fashion. It becomes his one delight, 
and his perpetual torment. He leaves it buried in its 
hiding-place : but he is in continual terror lest it should 
be discovered. He scarcely dares move from home, 
lest when he returns he should find it gone. Every 
noise that he hears, he fancies proceeds from some at- 
tempt to carry off his treasure. He leads his poor old 
housekeeper, his one slave Staphyla, a wretched life, 
from his perpetual worrying. When his neighbour 
Megadorus comes to ask the hand of Ins daughter in 
marriage, he is sure that it is because he has heard in 
some way of the gold. His continual protest is that 
he is miserably poor. One of the must ludicrous situa- 
tions is the dilemma in which he finds himself placed, 
when upon some occasion a dole of public money is 
announced for the poorer citizens. If he does not at- 
tend and claim his share, his neighbours will think he is 
a rich man, and be sure to try to hunt out his money : if 
he goes to the ward-mote to receive it, and has to wait 
perhaps some time for the distribution, what may not 
have become of his darling " Pot " during his absence ? 
Acute critics have said, apparently with truth, that in 
Euclio we have the pure miser ; who has no desire to 
increase his store, no actual pleasure in the possession, 
no sense of latent power in the gold which he treasures, 
but who is a very slave to it in the terror of losing it. 

Euclio, though much alarmed at first as to the pro- 
bable motives of Megadorus's request, consents to give 
him his daughter ; still, however, under protest that 
he is a very poor man, which the other fully believes. 
He can give no do wit with her : but Megadorus is 



THE TOT OF GOLD. 79 

prepared to take her without ; he will even jDrovide 
out of his own purse all the expenses of the wedding- 
feast, and will send in to Euclio's house both the pro- 
visions and the cooks required for the occasion. 

But the cooks, when they come, and begin to busy 
themselves in the house, are a source of continual 
agony to the miser. He hears one of them call for a 
" larger pot : " and he rushes at once to the protection 
of his gold. He finds his own dunghill-cock scratching 
about the house ; and he is sure that these new-comers 
have trained him to discover the buried treasure, and 
knocks the poor bird's head off in his fury. In the 
end he drives them all off the premises under a shower 
of blows, and only when he has in their absence dug up 
the precious pot, and got it safe under his cloak, will 
he allow them to come back again. When the bride- 
groom expectant, in the joy of his heart, invites him to 
drink with him. he feels satisfied that his intention is 
to make him drunk, and so to wring from him his 
secret. 

The miser carries off the pot, and proceeds to bury 
it afresh in the temple of Faith, placing it under that 
goddess's protection. He iinds that this proceeding has 
been watched by a slave belonging to Megadorus, and 
carries the gold off again to the sacred grove of Syl- 
vanus, where he buries it once more. This time, however, 
the slave takes his measures successfully, by getting up 
into a tree; and when Euclio is gone, he unearths the 
pot, and carries it off rejoicing. The discovery of his 
loss almost drives the miser frantic : and the scene is 
worth extracting, if only because Moliere has borrowed 
it almost entire in the well-known seliloqay of Harpa- 



80 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

gon in ' L'Avare.' It sliall be given in as literal a prose 
version as it will bear, in order to its more ready com- 
parison with the French imitation. 

euclio (solus, rushing on the stage). 

I'm ruined ! dead ! murdered ! — where shall I run ? 
Where shall I not run to ? Stop him there, stop him ! — 
Stop whom ! Who's to stop him ? (Striking his forehead 
in despair.) I can't tell — I can see nothing — I'm going 
blind. Where I'm going, or where I am, or who I am, I 
cannot for my life be sure of ! ( Wringing his hands, and 
appealing to the audience) Oh pray — I beseech you, help 
me ! I implore you, do ! Show me the man that stole 
it ! Ah ! people put on respectable clothes, and sit there 
as if they were all honest ! {Addressing a spectator in the 
front seats) What did you say, sir ? I can believe you, 
I'm sure — I can see from your looks you're an honest man. 
(Looking round on them all.) What is it ? Why do you 
all laugh ? Ah, I know you all ! There are thieves he/e, 
I know, in plenty ! Eh ! have none of them got it ? I'm 
a dead man ! Tell me then, who's got it ? — You don't 
know 1 Oh, wretch, wretch that I am ! utterly lost and 
ruined ! Never was man in such miserable plight. Oh, 
what groans, what horrible anguish this day has brought 
me ! Poverty and hunger ! I'm the most unhappy man 
on earth. For what use is life to me, when I have lost all 
my gold ? And I kept it so carefully ! — Pinched myself, 
starved myself, denied myself in everything ! And now 
others are making merry over it, — mocking at my loss and 
my misery ! I cannot bear it ! 

— Act v. sc. 2.* 

The scene which follows between the miser and the 
* Compare Moliere's ' L'Avare,' act iv. sc. 7. 



THE POT OF GOLD. 81 

young man Lyconicles, who has anticipated his uncle 
in the love of the miser's daughter, has also been bor- 
rowed by Moliere. Lyconides conies to confess that 
he has stolen the young lady's affections ; but Euclio is 
so full of his one great loss, that he persists in interpret- 
ing all Lyconides's somewhat incoherent language tc 
imply that he is the thief of the gold. The play upon 
the Latin word oll<t, which means " pot," and is also 
the old form of ilia, " she," helps the equivoque materi- 
ally. But the French version is far more amusing ; and 
the words of Harpagon, when, in reply to Valere's talk 
about " la passion que ses beaux yeux m'ont inspiree, 
be exclaims in bewilderment, " Les beaux yeux de ma 
cassette !" * has passed, like so many of Moliere's lines, 
into a favourite proverb. 

This play is imperfect, and we only know what the 
catastrophe was from the brief sketch in the metrical 
prologue, which Priscian the grammarian is said to 
have affixed to each of these comedies. The lover 
recovers the pot of gold for its owner ; and — by some 
miraculous change in the miser's nature — is presented 
with it as a dowry for the daughter. The later scenes 
have indeed been supplied by more than one ingenious 
" restorer ; " but such restorations are unsatisfactory at 
the best. 

Besides the admirable adaptation of this comedy in 
the French, no less than three English dramatists, 
Fielding, Shadwell, and Wycherley, have each a 
comedy called ' The Miser,' the plot and materials of 
all which are borrowed more or less from Plautus. 

* ' L'Avare," act v. sc. 1. 
a. c. vol. xvi. F 



82 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
IX. THE TRICKSTER (PSEUDOLUsV 

This comedy would deserve special notice, if only 
because it was, if we may trust Cicero, the " darling " 
of Plautus. An author, however, is not an infallible 
judge of his own works ; and though the action of the 
piece is very busy and lively, and the tricks of Pseu- 
dolus fairly amusing, few modern readers would be 
likely to select it as their favourite. Probably it might 
act better than it reads. Its plot is the old story of 
money which has to be raised in some way for the 
ransom of a slave-girl out of the hands of the dealer, 
and the humour consists entirely in the devices of 
Pseudolus to procure it for his young master. But 
one of the early scenes contains such a graphic picture 
of one of these hateful traffickers in human flesh and 
blood, that portions of it may be worth presenting to 
the reader. 

Enter Ballio, the slave-dealer, and four flogging-slaves, 
all armed with whips : other slaves following. 

Come out, here ! move ! stir about, ye idle rascals ! 

The very worst bargain that man ever made, 

Not worth your keep ! There's ne'er a one of ye 

That has thought of doing honest work. 

I shall never get money's worth out of your hides, 

Unless it be in this sort {lays about them with the whip). 

Such tough hides too ! 
Their ribs have no more feeling than an ass's — 
You'll hurt yourself long before you'll hurt them 
And this is all their plan — these whipping-posts — 
The moment they've a chance, it's pilfer, plunder, 
Eob, cheat, eat, drink, and run away's the word. 



THE TRICKSTER. 83 

That's all they'll do. You'd better leave a wolf 

To keep the sheep, than trust a house to them. 

Yet, now, to look at 'em, they're not amiss ; 

They're all so cursedly deceitful. — Now — look here ; 

Mind what I say, the lot of ye ; unless 

You all get rid of these curst sleepy ways, 

Dawdling and maundering there, I'll mark your backs 

In a very particular and curious pattern — 

With as many stripes as a Campanian quilt, 

And as many colours as an Egyptian carpet. 

I warned you yesterday ; you'd each your work ; 

But you're such a cursed, — idle, — mischievous crew — {gives 
one of them a cut at each word) 

That I'm obliged to let you have this as a memorandum. 

Oh ! that's your game, then, is it ? So you think 

Your ribs are as hard as this is ? (Shows his whip.) Now, 
just look ! 

(Turning to his whipping-slaves). They're minding some- 
thing else ! Attend to this, 

(Striking one of the others.) Mind this, now, will you ? 
Listen, while I speak, 

You generation that were born for flogging ; 

D'ye think your backs are tougher than this cow-hide ? 

(Lays about him with it.) Why, what's the matter ? Does 
it hurt ? dear ! — 

That's what slaves get when they won't mind their masters. 

— Act i. sc. 2. 

There was a highly comic element in this, we may be 
sure, to an audience of Roman freemen. Even if there 
were, as it is certain there must have been, present in 
the theatre, many who had been slaves themselves, and 
whose fathers had been in slavery, and many who were 
slaves still, we may feel only too sure that their laugh 
was amongst the loudest. Among the curses of modern 



84 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

slavery has been the selfish disregard of human suffer- 
ing which it encouraged not only amongst the masters 
but amongst the slaves themselves ; and it is well 
known that a negro overseer has often shown far more 
cruelty towards those of his own colour than the 
white owner of the plantation. 

The slave Pseudolus, who is the hero of this piece, 
and from whom Moliere seems to have borrowed in 
some degree his character of Mascarille in ' L'Etourdi/ 
is somewhat of a more intellectual rascal than others 
of his type who appear in these comedies. He looks 
upon successful roguery as a highly intellectual ac- 
complishment. 

Just as the poet, when he takes his pen, 

Seeks things which upon earth have no existence, 

And straightway finds them, and makes that like truth 

Which is but very falsehood ; thus will I 

In my way be a poet ; these gold pieces 

Which are not, shall be ; genius shall create them. 

The scene in which he meets his master Simo, who is 
looking for him in order to make some inquiries as to 
the late discreditable goings-on of his son, in which he 
thinks with some justice that Pseudolus has been aiding 
and abetting, is a good specimen of cool effrontery. 
Simo is accompanied by his friend Callipho, and Pseu- 
dolus sees them coming. 

Pseudolus (to himself '). A bold behaviour in a doubtful 
cause 
Is half the victory. (Bowing profoundly to Simo.) Sir, 
my hest respects — 



THE TRICKSTER. 85 

They are niy master's due. Bowing to CaUipho.) My 

— : Mid Lest, 
Such as are left me, sir, I offer you. 

uffiy). Good morning. Where may you be 
gyiDg, eh ? 
Pseud. I'm standing still, sir, as you might observe 

(striking an attitu t , 
Si. Look at the fellow's posture, CaUipho ! 
Stands like a lord there ! 

CaUipho. Well, he's not afraid ; 

That's a good sign. 

P.stud. I hold, sir, that the slave 

"Who has an honest conscience [lays his hand on his heart) 

should feel proud, 
Especially in the presence of his master. 

Si. Hark to him ! Now he'll so philosophise, 
And choke you with a flood of clever words, 
You'd think he was not Pstudolus, but Sucrates.* 

Pseud. You hold me in contempt, sir — that I know ; 
You do not trust me ; ah ! you'd have me be 
A rascal ; no. sir — I'll be honest still. 

— Act i. sc. 5. 

His master asks hiia whether he can answer honest- 
ly a few questions about his son : and Pseudolus assures 
him that his replies shall be " as the oracles of Delphi." 
His son has got into trouble ] Yes. Owes money ] 
Yes. He, Pseudolus, is trying to procure it for him ? 
Y'es. Probably intending, by some tricks or cajolery, 
to extract it out of his — the father's — pocket ] Pseudo- 
lus confesses that he had such intention. And, after 

* This reputation for "sophistry" seems to have followed 
Socrates from the pages of Aristophanes to those of his brother 
dramatist. 



86 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

some satirical compliment from Simo upon Lis candour, 
and thanks for having thus put him on his guard, he 
coolly assures his master that he retains this intention 
still, and is confident of succeeding in it. Nay, more 
—when Simo challenges him to try, he will undertake 
not only to get from him the money required for the 
ransom of the young person upon whom his son has set 
his heart, but to get her away from her present owner 
without any ransom at all. It ends in a promise from 
Simo to make him a present of the sum required, if he 
succeeds in his design upon Ballio the slave-dealer. The 
old gentleman, however, gets so uneasy on the subject, 
that he succeeds in " hedging ' ; his own stake in the 
matter by telling Ballio of the plot which is laid for 
him, and making a wager with him to the same amount 
that Pseudolus will beat him in spite of all precautions. 
He does ; and his master — who is evidently as proud 
of possessing such a clever slave as some people are of 
a specially mischievous child — hands him over the 
money ; with the less reluctance, because he gets re- 
couped at the expense of the wretched Ballio, who 
loses both his slave and his wager. Pseudolus liber- 
ally offers to return his master half, if he will join him 
at a supper which he has ordered in celebration of his 
double triumph ; and Simo, in accordance with that 
curious combination of familiarity and despotism which 
has been remarked as pervading all the relations be- 
tween master and slave, accepts the invitation at once, 
although Pseudolus is very far from sober when he gives 
it. Simo suggests that he should also invite the audi- 
ence ; but Pseudolus replies that none of them have 
ever yet invited Mm. If, however, they will now sig 



THE YOUNG CARTHAGINIAN. 87 

nify their approval of the comedy, he will give them 
an invitation — to-morrow. 

The plays named 'Epidicus' and 'Bacchides' both 
turn upon incidents very similar to the preceding, the 
clever and unscrupulous slave being the leading charac- 
ter in both. They call for no particular notice here ; 
unless it be to mention that the 'Epidicus ' must have 
been, like the play just noticed, a special favourite with 
its author, since he makes one of the characters in his 
' Bacchides ' say that he " loves it as well as his own 
life ; " * and that this latter play, like the ' Pseudolus,' 
appears to have suggested tp Moliere some points in his 
'L'Etourdi.' One of its scenes + has also (as Thornton 
thinks) been imitated bv him in c Les Eourberies de 
Scapin.' 

X. THE YOUNG CARTHAGINIAN (PCENULUS). 

This play has an interest apart from any literary 
merit, because, written as it was during the Second 
Punic War, it has some Carthaginians introduced into 
it. We may conclude that the sketches were such as 
Plautus judged likely to meet the popular taste; and 
if so, they are creditable to the Eoman contemporary 
estimate of their powerful enemies. With the excep- 
tion of a joke or two about long trailing foreign dresses, 
and their being " pulse-eaters," — just as we used to affect 
to believe that Erenchmen lived upon frogs, — and a 
hit in the prologue at the proverbial u Punic faith, " 
which on a Eoman's tongue meant Punic faithlessness, 
there is nothing derogatory to their national character 

* Baech., act ii. sc. 2. t Act iii. sc. 3. 



88 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS 

in this impersonation of the Carthaginians hy the Koman 
dramatist. The elder of the two, who is introduced 
under a very historical name — Hanno — is a highly 
straightforward and unselfish character, who at once 
gives up to his cousin, Agorastocles, the " young Cartha- 
ginian," as soon as he discovers their relationship, the 
property which had been left to himself by the young 
man's father, in the belief of his son's death. Agoras- 
tocles himself is neither better nor worse than the Athe- 
nian (or, as they really are, Roman) youths who figure 
in the comedies. And as for Adelphasium — Hanno's 
lost daughter, with whom the hero of the piece has 
fallen passionately in love in her position as a slave — 
there is more character in her than in any one of the 
heroines (the word must be used because there is no 
other to be found) of Plautus or of Terence. It is diffi- 
cult to separate her from the very disagreeable interlo- 
cutors in the dialogues in which she takes a part : but 
the quiet way in which she treats her sister's love of 
finery, and her half-affected indifference to the flat- 
teries of her lover, and disregard of all his raptures so 
long as he fails in his promise of obtaining her freedom, 
mark her out very distinctly from most of the female 
characters in Plautus. There is an amusing scene in 
which her lover, finding that she will not listen to him, 
begs his servant Milphio, in whose rhetorical powers 
he feels more confidence, to plead his cause w T ith her. 
Milphio consents to do it — warning his master, at the 
same time, that he may possibly think his ambassador 
too energetic. So the young man listens in the back- 
ground, while Milphio, speaking on his behalf, entreat* 
Adelphasium, in the most approved style of lovers 



THE YOUNG CARTHAGINIAN. 89 

language, to have some pity upon his unfortunate 
master. He throws himself so heartily into his com- 
mission, that the Carthaginian listens to his rapturous 
expressions with dismay, and at last can endure it no 
longer. He rushes forward, and seizes his ambassador 
by the collar, wholly regardless of the presence of the 
lady and her sister, who look on with much amusement. 

Agorastocles. Now am I not worth purchase at three 
farthings, 
If I don't break that scoundrel's head. — Come here, sir ! 

{seizes Milphio.) 
There's for your "sweets," — and "dears," — and "pretty 

darlings " — (beats him at each ivord). 
Here's " heart's delight " and "lovely charmer" for you! 
(beats him again) 
Milphio. Oh, master, master ! it's rank sacrilege ! 
You're beating an ambassador ! 

Agor. I'll beat him 

More yet.—" Kiss her all day," sir, could you ? 
I daresay ! (striking him again.) " Nestling of your 
bosom," is she ? 
Mil. (roaring and rubbing his shoulders). Oh ! that's 

enough ! 
Agor. Was that the fashion, sirrah, 

In which I meant you to address the lady ? 
Mil. Why, what was I to say, then ? 
Agor. Say, you rascal ? 

Why, this — " Light of my master's eyes — queen of his 

soul — 
Breath of his life — joy of his heart," — and so on : 
Instead of that, sir, in your cursed impudence, 
You've been calling her your darling all the time ! 
Mil. Oh ! now I see ! (goes up to Adelphasium, and 
begins again.) 



90 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

I implore you, gracious madam, — 
J oy of his heart — but my abomination — 
Queen of his soul — but enemy of my ribs — 
His pet, my pest — his angel, but my devil — 
Light of his eyes — but black as night to me — 
Don't be so very cross to him, — if you can help it. 

Adelphasium (laughing and turning away). Go hang 
yourself ! you and your master too ! 

Mil. I shall lead a precious life of it, I see, through you ; 
I've got a back already in your service 
Whealed like an oyster-shell. 

A del. It's your own back 

That you think most of, I suspect ; not him, 
Or how he cheats me with deceitful -oromises. 

When Hanno has discovered that these two sisters are 
the long-lost daughters in search of whom he has 
journeyed to Calydon, he determines to play upon their 
feelings for a while — in the most unnecessary and un- 
likely fashion — by pretending to them that he merely 
comes to claim them as his slaves. And here, again, 
there are little touches on the part of Adelphasium 
which almost redeem the scene from tediousness. 
Hanno pretends to summon the girls before the magis- 
trate, in order to prove his claim ; and the lover, who 
is present, and helps (though with evident impatience) 
to humour the father's jest, asks him if he shall at once 
make Adelphasium his prisoner. She has heard him 
address the stranger as his " cousin ; " and the fine 
scorn with which, as she draws back from his eager 
arm, she exclaims — 

" Said you this person was your kinsman, sir ? " 

could not fail to be effective from the lips of a clever 



THE YOUNG CARTHAGINIAN. 9] 

actress. So, too, when she requests to know the nature 
of Hanno's claim to her, and the lover, eager to put an 
end to the equivoque, says that all shall be told if 
she will but accompany the stranger, she scornfully 
replies — 

" What ! does my own dog bark at me ? " 

it is not difficult to sympathise with the young Cartha- 
ginian's intense admiration of her as she stands there 
defying him. He vows that for her sake Jupiter would 
soon " send Juno packing;" and when at last she throws 
her arms round her father's neck, he laments that Apel- 
les and Zeuxis died too soon — they had never such a 
subject for their pencil. These are by far the most 
life-like pair of lovers in any comedy of either 
Plautus or Terence. Granted that he is a little 
foolish, and she something of a coquette, — that does 
not make the characters either less natural or less 
entertaining. 

Nevertheless, all this absurd mystification on the 
part of the father does make this scene tedious, as are 
some others in the play. Hanno carries on his heavy 
joke so long, that at last his young cousin, who is im- 
patient for the recognition of his dear Adelphasium, 
appeals to him by pointing to the audience : — 

" Sir, cut it short — these gentlemen are thirsty." 

There is no symptom of relenting disclosed on the 
part of Adelphasium towards her suitor, even after her 
true position as a free- woman has been secured ; but, 
as Hanno unhesitatingly promises her hand in marriage 
to her new-found cousin, and daughters in the comic 



92 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTU& 

drama are very dutiful on such points, we are left to 
conclude that his constancy is rewarded. Mr Dunlop 
— whose critical judgment is entitled to so much re- 
spect — has pronounced this to be the dullest of all the 
author's productions. Plot there certainly is none ; 
and the heavy badinage of the excellent Hanno is 
enough to put any critic out of temper. But there 
is certainty more point in the dialogue than in most of 
the comedies of Plautus. 

The play has a special interest for scholars, indepen- 
dently of any literary merit. It is supposed to contain 
the only existing specimen of the Carthaginian language, 
in which Hanno is made to speak when first he appears 
upon the stage.* There are eighteen lines of it (some 
of them, however, containing a mixture of Latin 
words), besides a few scattered phrases. This philo- 
logical curiosity has naturally much exercised the in- 
genuity of the learned. Scaliger, Petit, and others, 
consider the language to be merely a variation of He- 
brew, and in Pareus's edition of Plautus the lines are 
printed in Hebrew characters. Others have sought to 
identify it with Chinese, Persian, or Coptic. Some 
modern philologers incline to consider it a mere un- 
meaning jargon, invented by Plautus for the occasion ; 
and the frequent admixture of Latin words and ter- 
minations in the last lines of the passage (as though 
the writer were tired of keeping up the farce) certainly 
lends some countenance to this view. The vocalisation 
of some of the words bears no slight resemblance to 

* Act v. sc. 1. 



THE COMEDIES OF PL ACTUS. 93 

Welsh. But the question of the affinities of language 
is rot one to be discussed here. 



The remaining Comedies may "be dismissed with brief 
notice. The stock characters — the parasite, the mili- 
tary swaggerer, and the cunning slave— reappear upon 
the stage in very similar combinations, and in less 
respectable company. ' Stichus,' which is in other 
respects deficient in interest, having no plot whatever, 
and which some authorities do not consider to have 
been written by Plautus, deserves notice as containing 
the pretty female character of Pamphila (or Pinacium, 
as she is called in some copies), the exemplary young 
wife who maintains her fidelity to her absent husband 
in spite of the strong probabilities of his death or deser- 
tion. In vain has her father urged upon her and his 
other daughter, in accordance, no doubt, with the feeling 
of society on such points, the propriety of unprotected 
young women in their circumstances marrying again. 
Their husbands have now been absent, ostensibly on a 
trading voyage, for above three years, and have sent no 
word home. But Pamphila will listen to no swh 
suggestion, and encourages her sister in steady resist- 
ance to all temptations to such breach of their first 
vows. Of course both husbands return home in due 
time, enriched by the profits made in their foreign 
voyages ; and such is the whole story of this brief and 
inartistic drama, remarkable only for its pleasant com- 
panion pictures of the two young wives. Six more plays 
make up the list of Plautus's surviving comedies, and if 



94 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 

these bad not survived, we should certainly have had 
no loss. Their names are ' Casina ' — which seems to 
have furnished Beaumarchais with part of the plot of 
his ' Mariage de Figaro ' — ' Curculio,' ' The Ass-dealer ' 
(Asinaria), 'The Churl ' (Truculentus), 'The Merchant/ 
arid 'The Persian/ The morality of all these is of 
the very lowest, and the three last are stupid besides. 



CHAPTER V. 



TERENCE. 



A dramatic generation elapsed between Plautus and 
Terence ; for the latter was only ten years old at the 
date of Plautus's death. The great name which filled 
the interval in the annals of Roman comedy was that of 
Csecilius ; hut of his works nothing remains except a 
few disjointed passages to he found here and there in the 
works of other authors. Horace mentions him with ap- 
proval, while Cicero accuses him of bad Latin. Csecilius, 
too, was a copyist from Menander, and a very indifferent 
copyist in the opinion of Aulus Gellius, who gives us 
an additional testimony to the genius of the Greek 
dramatist, when, in comparing a passage from one of 
his lost comedies with the imitation of it by Caecilius, 
he says that the difference in brilliancy is that of the 
golden armour of Glaucus compared with the bronze of 
Diomed. 

Such biographical record as we have of Ter- 
ence is mainly derived from a source which is very 
apocryphal. There is a " Life " of him, ascribed to 
Suetonius, but more probably written by the gram- 
marian Donatus : we do not know what authority the 



96 TERENCE. 

writer had for his details, and the anecdotes which it 
contains have a suspicious colouring. 

Though the name by which he is known — Publius 
Terentius — is Roman, we are told that he was by 
birth a Carthaginian, whence came his sobriquet 
of "Afer" (the African), and that he was either 
born in slavery or had become a prisoner of war. 
He was brought dp in ihe houseaold of a Roman 
senator named Terentius, and, as was not uncommon 
among slaves when they obtained their freedom, took 
the name of his patron. That under these circumstances 
he should have had a liberal education need not 
discredit the story ; for in many Roman families we 
know that such young slaves as showed ability were 
allowed ampk opportunities of instruction. But 
other opportunities are said to have fallen to the lot 
of Terence such as few in his position could have 
hoped for. He was admitted, while yet a young 
man, to an intimate association with Scipio and 
Lgelius ; and this pair of accomplished friends were 
even said to have had a large share in the composition 
of the dramas which were brought out in the name of 
their humbler associate. There is a story that Lselius, 
being one evening busy in his library, and slow to 
obey his wife's summons to dinner, excused himself by 
saying he had never been in a happier mood for com- 
position : and forthwith recited, as part of the result, 
a passage from what was afterwards known as 'The 
Self-Tormentor' of Terence. The dramatist himself, 
perhaps very naturally, seems partly to have encouraged 
the popular notion that he enjoyed such distinguished 
help ; for though in his prologue to the comedy which 



TERENCE. 97 

was said to have been really the work of his aristocratic 
friend he speaks of this report as " a weak invention of 
the enemy," yet in the prologue to a subsequent drama, 
'The Brothers,' he evidently treats it as a compli- 
ment, and does not care altogether to refute so flattering 
an accusation. 

For as to that which carping tongues report, 
That certain noble friends have lent their hand 
To this his work, and shared the poet's toil, — 
What they would fling at him as a reproach 
He counts an honour, — to be thus approved 
By those whom universal Rome approves.* 

Cicero thought it probable that his illustrious friends 
did help him, though it might have been only by 
judicious hints and corrections. It is also more than 
possible that the dramatist may have been indebted 
for much of the refinement of his dialogue, directly or 
indirectly, to the accomplished women whose society 
he enjoyed in the household of La3iius. The ladies of 
that family were all charming talkers ; and Lselia, the 
eldest daughter of Scipio's friend, is mentioned by her 
son-in-law Crassus, the famous orator, as reminding 
him, in the elegance of her language, of the dialogues 
of Xsevius and Plautus. 

It is said that when he offered his first play to the 
iEdiles, who as the regulators of the public games had 
to choose the pieces which were to enjoy the honour of 
public representation, he found the officer to whom he 
brought it to read seated at table. The young author 
was desired to take a stool at a distance, and begin : 
but he had scarcely got through the opening passage 

* Prologue to the Adelphi, 15. 
A. c. vol. xvi. G 



98 TERENCE. 

of i The Maid of Andros ' when the iEdile motioned 
him to a seat by his own side, and there the reading 
was completed. 

The six comedies which follow are probably all that 
their author ever put upon the stage. In the midst of his 
dramatic career, he left Rome in order to travel in 
Greece, and is said during his tour to have employed 
himself in the translation of upwards of a hundred 
of Menander s comedies. He seems never to have 
returned, and tradition says that he was lost at sea on 
his voyage homeward, and that his precious manu- 
scripts perished with him. Another story is that he 
himself escaped from the wreck, but died of grief for 
the loss of his literary treasures. 

His plays have far more elegance, but less action, 
than those of Plautus. He is perhaps more adapted 
for the library, and Plautus for the stage. Very much 
of the fun of the latter is broad farce, while Terence 
seldom descends below parlour comedy. But the two 
writers had moved in very different circles : Plautus 
had been familiar with life in the Suburra — the St 
Giles's of Rome — while Terence had mixed in the 
society of the Palatine. Their tastes had thus been 
formed in very different schools. It is probable that 
Terence gives us a better notion of what Menander was 
than either Plautus or Csecilius. A criticism of Cassar 
has been already quoted, in which he calls Terence a 
" half-Menander.' , In the same lines he speaks of his 
" pure diction " and " smoothness," and regrets his de- 
ficiency in that lively humour ("vis comica") which 
Menander seems to have succeeded in combining with 



TERENCE. 99 

the Attic elegance of his style. There seems much 
justice in this criticism. 

The brief prologues with which Terence introduces 
his plays, unlike those of Plautus, contain no kind of 
explanation of the plot. They are personal appeals 
of the poet to his audience, informing them honestly 
of the sources from which he has borrowed his piece 
(for to the honours of original invention no Roman 
dramatist of those days seems to have thought of 
aspiring), or defending himself against some charge of 
unfair dealing brought against him by his rivals. In 
this respect they bear a strong resemblance to the 
" parabasis," as it was called, introduced here and there 
between what we should call the acts, in the old Attic 
Comedy of Aristophanes and Cratinus. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
I. — THE MAID OP ANDROS. 

' The Maid of Andros ' — the earliest in date of 
Terence's comedies with which we are acquainted — 
is confessedly founded upon two plays of Menander, 
his ' Andria' and 'Perinthia ;' and the Roman dramatist 
tells us, in his prologue, how certain critics complained 
that in this adaptation he had spoilt two good pieces 
to make a single indifferent one. How much truth there 
may he in the accusation we cannot even guess. But there 
seems to have been generally a lack of incident in the 
comedies of his great original, which, supposing such 
adaptation to be permissible at all, would quite justify 
a writer who had to make his own work effective in 
supplying himself with sufficient material from as 
many separate pieces as he thought proper. Even as we 
have the play, the incidents are so few and simple, that 
its defect, if acted before a modern audience, would be 
the want of sufficient interest in the plot. A lady 
named Chrysis has come from the island of Andros to 
Athens, and there, from lack of money or friends, after 



THE MAID OF AN BROS. " 101 

a hard struggle to make an honest livelihood, has been 
driven to make a market of her beauty. Amongst the 
visitors to her house, one of the most constant has 
"been the young Pamphilus, who may be considered the 
hero of the piece. But, whatever the lady's reputation, 
the relations between her and Pamphilus have been of 
the most innocent kind : and of this fact none are 
better convinced than his father Simo, and the freed- 
man Sosia — who is, in spite of his humble position in 
the household, the confidential friend and adviser of 
both father and son. The scene between Sosia and his 
master gives us, as most of these comedies do, a very 
pleasant idea of the kindly relations which in a well- 
regulated Roman household might subsist between the 
head of the family and his dependants, even under the 
hateful conditions of slavery. For we must still re- 
member that, though the scene is laid in Athens, the 
words, and in a great degree the manners also, are 
Roman ; though Terence is more careful on this point 
than Plautus. Simo tells his freedman that he wants 
his services in a matter which involves trust and secrecy 
— qualities in which he has not hitherto found him 
wanting. 

Simo. You know that, since I bought you when a boy, 
You found me as a master j ust and kind ; 
Then from a slave I made you free ; and this 
Because you had served me with a free goodwill; 
The greatest boon I had to give, I gave you. 

Sosia. I don't forget it. 

Si. Nor do I repent it. 

So. If aught that I have done, or can do, pleases you, 
It is my pleasure : if you thank me for it, 



102 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 

I thank you for the thanks. But that you name it 
Troubles me somewhat ; thus reminding me 
Seems half to charge me with ingratitude ; — 
Sir, in one word, what would you have me do 1 

Simo will tell him. It was true, — there was nothing 
between his son and Chrysis ; his visits were really 
not to her. But Chrysis died a short time ago ; and 
Pamphilus, as a mark of respect to an old acquaintance, 
had followed amongst the mourners at her funeral. 
Simo — one of the many idle old gentlemen who were 
wont to be spectators on such occasions — had seen his 
son actually wipe away a tear. He was charmed, he 
tells Sosia, at such a mark of true sensibility. " If he 
weeps, said I to myself, for a person who was a mere 
common acquaintance, what would he not do for me — 
his father ! " Suddenly a young woman, hitherto un- 
known, attracted his attention : of such a ravishing 
beauty that the staid father of the family grows posi- 
tively enthusiastic — rather to the surprise of the discreet 
Sosia — in his description. When the corpse is laid, ac- 
cording to Athenian custom, on the funeral pile, this 
interesting young stranger, in the agony of her grief, 
crept so close to it as to be almost caught by the flames ; 
when a young man rushed forward, clasped her in his 
arms with the tenderest expressions of affection, calling 
her his " darling Gly cerium," and led her off sobbing 
very familiarly on his shoulder — quite as if she was used 
to the situation. And this young man was Pamphilus — 
and his father looking on with his own eyes ! He had 
gone home, as he tells Sosia, in such mood as might be 
imagined after witnessing this outrageous conduct in 



THE MAID OF ANDROS. 103 

the promised bridegroom of his old friend's daughter. 
Yet, after all, he continues — 

I had scarce ground enough, methinks, to chide him ; 
He might reply — " Have I deserved this, father ? 
What have I done ? Wherein have I offended ? 
She would have thrown herself into the flames ; 
I hindered it — I saved her life ! " — Such plea 
Sounds fair and honest. 

So. Marry, so it does ; 

For if you chide him that would save a life, 
What will y ou say to him that seeks to take it ? 

However, the father is in great tribulation. His friend 
Chremes has heard of the matter, and is told that 
Pamphilus is privately married to this young foreigner ; 
and very naturally declines any longer to look upon him 
as a future son-in-law. But Simo is determined to find 
out the truth, and to be satisfied whether his son has 
really got into this disreputable entanglement. He 
means to pretend to him that the marriage with Chre- 
mes's daughter, so long meditated, is at last finally settled, 
and is to come off at once, this very evening, the day 
originally named. Young men in Athenian society 
must have been usually very obedient to their fathers 
in such matters : for Simo has no doubt of his son's 
compliance, unless he can show good and reasonable 
cause to the contrary. If this Andrian girl really 
stands in the way, Pamphilus will make decided objec- 
tions to the being disposed of in marriage, and then — 
then, this indulgent father, who evidently dreads noth- 
ing so much as having to find fault with his son at 
all, will know how to deal with him. So Sosia is 



104 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 

charged to keep up the deception, and to assure every 
one that his young master is to be married this very 
evening. 

But, if Sosia justly enjoys the confidence of his 
master, the young heir of the house has his confidant 
too. This is a slave named Davus — the best-known 
representative in classical comedy of the familiar char- 
acter who has been described in a previous chapter.* 
He has considerably more cleverness than Sosia, but 
nothing of his honesty: except, indeed, a kind of span- 
iel-like fidelity to his young master's private interests, 
partly attributable to the mischievous pleasure which 
he finds in thereby thwarting the plans and wishes of 
the elder one. Davus has heard of this sudden re- 
newal of the marriage-contract, and comes upon the 
stage soliloquising as to how this complication is to be 
dealt with. His master enters at the same time on 
the other side, listening. 

Davus. Ah ! I was wondering where all this would end! 
The master was so quiet, I suspected 
He must mean mischief. When he heard that Chremes 
Downright refused his girl, he never spoke 
An angry word, nor stormed at any of us. 

Simo. {aside at the vjing, shaking his stick at Davus). 
He will speak soon, and to your cost, you rascal ! 

Da. (still aside). So, so! he thought to take us unprepared, 
Lapping us up in this fools' Paradise, 
To swoop upon us at the last, too late 
To give us time to think, or opportunity 
To hinder this curst wedding. (Ironically.) Clever man ! 
Si. (trying to listen). What is he muttering ? 

* See p. 15. 



THE MA11) OF ANDROS. 105 

Da. {discovering Simo). Ha ! my master there ! 

I had not seen him. 
Si- (coming forward?). Davus ! 

Da. (pretending not to leave seen him before). Hey ? 
what is it ? 

Si. Here, sirrah, come this way ! 

Da. (aside). What can he want ? 

Si, What say you ? 

Da. What about 1 

Si. D'ye ask me, sirrah ? — 

They say my son has a love affair ? 

Da. Good lack ! 

How folks will talk ! 

Si, D'ye mind me, sir, or no ? 

Da. I'm all attention. 

Si. Well — to inquire too closely 

Into the past were harsh — let bygones rest. 
But now he must begin a different life ; 
New duties lie before him from this day : 
And you — I charge you (changing Ids tone) — nay, indeed, 

good Davus, 
I rather would intreat you, if I may, 
Pray help to keep him straight. 

Da. (affecting suprise.) Why — what's all this ? 

Si. Young men, you know, with such whims, do not care 
To have a wife assigned them. 

Da. (carelessly). So they say. 

Si. Then — if a young man have a knavish tutor 
Who trains him in such courses, why, the evil 
Will grow from bad to worse. 

Da. (looking stolid). Hercules help me ! 

I can't tell what you mean. 

Si. (ironically). No — really ? 

Da. No ; 

I'm only Davus — I'm no GEdipus. 

Si. You'd have me speak more plainly — is it so ? 



106 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 

Da. Indeed I would. 

Si. Then, if I catch you scheming 

To disappoint this match of ours to-day, 
By way of showing your own curst cleverness, 
I'll have you flogged within an inch of life, 
And sent to the mill — on this condition, look you — 
When I let you out, I'll go and grind myself. 
Now, sir, d'ye understand me 1 Is that plain ? 

Da. Oh, perfectly ! (bowing). You state the case so 
clearly, 
With such entire correctness of expression, 
So free from ambiguity — it's quite charming ! 

But Davus is not deterred by these threats. He 
meets Chremes going about with a very gloomy face, 
not at all like a happy father-in-]aw : he meets his foot- 
boy coming home from market with a penny bundle 
of pot-herbs and a dish of sprats — very unlike pro- 
visions for a wedding-supper. He peeps into their 
kitchen ; no culinary preparations whatever. More- 
over, there is no music, as there should be, before the 
door of the bride's house. He is satisfied that his 
suspicions are correct ; that there is really no wedding 
on foot, at least for the present ; that Chremes still 
firmly refuses to allow his daughter to marry a young 
man whom he believes to be married already ; and that 
Simo is only using this pretended renewal of the en- 
gagement as a test for ascertaining how matters really 
stand between his son and the fair Andrian. He 
goes in search of his young master to acquaint him 
with this discovery, and to advise him to checkmate 
his father by consenting at once to the proposed 
marriage ; which, as there is no bride forthcoming, will 



THE MAID OF AXDROS. 107 

evidently pose the old gentleman considerably, besides 
convincing him that his son is free from the entangle- 
ment which he suspects. There will be a respite 
gained, at any rate : and in the meanwhile, Davus 
hopes, — " something will turn up." 

He finds Pamphilus in a state of great perplexity, 
and very indignant against his father for proposing 
to marry him off-hand at such very short notice ; 
the perplexity not being lessened by his Glycerium pre- 
senting him with a baby on this his wedding-day that 
is to be with another lady. Simo has heard a report 
of this little stranger's arrival : but he believes it to 
be a mere plot to impose upon him and Chremes, and 
to confirm his friend in his resolution to refuse his 
daughter. 

Acting upon the advice of Davus, Pamphilus assures 
his father at their next interview that he is quite ready 
to take the wife suggested to him. But Davus has 
been too clever by half. Simo goes straight to his 
friend, assures him that all is over between Pam- 
philus and Glycerium, that his son will gladly fulfil 
the contract already made for him, and begs of him, 
by their long friendship, not to refuse any longer a 
connection which will be for his son's advantage and 
for the happiness of all. Chremes with some reluc- 
tance consents : and in the joy of his heart Simo calls 
Davus, to whose good offices he thinks he is chiefly 
indebted for his son's compliance. 

Simo. Davus, I do confess, I doubted you : 
I had my fears ; slaves — common slaves, I mean — 
Will do such things, — that you were cheating me, 
As to this matter of my son's. 



108 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 

Davus. {with an air of injured innocence). I, master ! 
could you think it ? cheat ? — Oh dear ! 

Si. (soothingly). Well, well — I fancied so : and with 
that thought 
1 kept the secret which I tell you now. 

J) a. W hat's that ? 

Si. Well, you shall hear : for now at last 

I almost think that I may trust you — may I ? 

Da. At last, sir, it seems, sir, you appreciate me. 

Si. This wedding was a mere pretence. 

Da. (ivith feigned surprise). No ! really ? 

Si. A scheme of mine, to test my sou and you. 

Da. Indeed ! 

Si. Yes, really. 

Da. Look ye ! what a wit 

Our master has ! I never could have guessed it. 

Si. Listen ; when I dismissed you, I met Chremes — 

Da. (aside.) We're lost — I know it. 

Si. Listen ; straight 1 told him 

What you told me, that Pamphilus was ready. 
I begged and prayed that he would give his daughter ; 
At last I moved him. 

Da. (aside). Then I'm done for. 

Si. Hey ! did you speak ? 

Da. I only said " well done," sir. 

Si. And I beseech you, Davus, as you love me, 
Since you alone have brought about this wedding — 

Da. 1 1 oh dear, no ! pray — 

Si. For my son I ask you, 

Still do your best to regulate his morals. 

Da. I will, I will, sir — trust me. [Exit Chremes. 

(Throws himself on the ground and tears his hair.) 

0— h ! 0— h ! 
I'm gone — a thing of nought. Why don't I go 
Straight to the mill-prison of myself ? — Forgiveness ? 
No hope of that, from any one. I've played 



"HE MAID OF AXDROS. 109 

The very mischief with the total household ; 

Cheated the master — got the son a wife — 

This very night, much to the old gentleman's 

Astonishment, and his son's disgust. — Ah ! well ! 

This comes of cleverness. Had I held my tongue, 

No harm had happened. — Hist ! here conies young master ; 

{Looking about.) Is there any place here high enough, I 

wonder, 
For a man to break his neck from ? 

There is another lover in the plot, — which is perhaps 
to our modern notions more complicated than interesting. 
This daughter of Chremes, to whom Pamphilus has 
been contracted by his father, has a favoured admirer in 
his friend Charinus. Pamphilus has assured him that he 
himself has no aspirations whatever in that quarter, in 
spite of the arrangement between the two fathers : and 
the young lover is naturally indignant when he dis- 
covers, as he thinks, the treacherous part which his 
friend has played in the matter, in now coming forward 
to fulfil an engagement which he had always professed 
to repudiate. There is a spirited scene between the 
two young men, in which Pamphilus at last succeeds in 
convincing his friend of his own unchanged views in 
the matter — he will never marry the girl of his own 
free-will. Poor Davus narrowly escapes a thrashing from 
both, for his unlucky interference. He undertakes, 
however, if they will but have patience with him, to 
set matters right yet : and his next step is to persuade 
the nurse to allow him to lay Gly cerium's baby clown 
at his master's door — a silent claim upon his grand- 
father — just as Chremes, full of his daughter's marriage, 
is coming to call on his old friend. Chremes finds out 



110 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 

— as Davus intends that he should — whose child it is, 
and is more than ever indignant at the deception which 
is being repeated upon himself and his daughter. He 
goes straight to Simo and once more recalls his consent. 
But meanwhile a stranger has arrived at Athens, 
who announces that this Andrian girl was really no 
sister of Chrysis, but a free-born daughter of Athenian 
parents, and that therefore Pamphilus w-ll be bound 
by Athenian laAV to marry her — if they ace not married 
already. When Davus comes to announce this news 
to Simo, the old gentleman's indignation at this new 
ruse on behalf of the conspirators — as he thinks it — 
knows no bounds ; and poor Davus, who is now speak- 
ing the truth for the first time in the whole business, 
is for his reward tied neck and heels by order of his 
irate master, and carried off to prison. But the tale 
is true. An Athenian citizen had been shipwrecked 
upon the island with a little child ; had died there, 
and left the infant to be brought up by Chrysis. 
This shipwrecked stranger turns out to have been 
Chremes's own brother, to whose charge he had com- 
mitted his little daughter — this Glycerium, long 
supposed to be drowned, and now restored to her 
father. All difficulties are over ; Pamphilus shall yet 
be son-in-law to Chremes — only the bride is Glycerium, 
not Philumena. The latter young lady, who never 
makes her appearance, and whose charms, like those of 
Glycerium, must be taken on report by the audience, is 
with dramatic justice handed over to her lover Charinus. 
Davus is released ; he comes in rubbing his neck and 
legs, which are still suffering from the very uncomfort- 
able kind of stocks — a veritable " little-ease " — which 



THE MOYHEH-IN-LAW. Ill 

the Eomans used to punish their slaves, but too good- 
humoured and light-hearted not to rejoice in the re- 
stored harmony of the family. He concludes the piece 
by begging the audience not to expect an invitation 
to the weddings, which will take place, he assures them, 
quite privately.* 

II. THE MOTHER-IN-LAW. 

The plot of 'The Mother-in-law/ though it is an 
extremely pretty play, and its moral excellent, turns 
upon incidents which would justly offend the reticence 
of modern manners. Here it can only be sketched 
generally. A young wife, but a few months married and 
of really irreproachable character, fancies that she has 
so fatally compromised herself with her husband under 
circumstances in which she was really not to blame, 
that in his absence she leaves the roof of his 
father and mother, with whom she has been living, 
since her marriage, and takes refuge with her own 
parents. Laches, her father-in-law, a choleric and 
despotic personage, fancies that his wife Sostrata, the 
" mother-in-law," must necessarily be the cause ; al- 
though that gentle and kindly woman has really a 
sincere affection for the runaway, to whom she has 
always shown every kindness. The scolding which 
Laches inflicts upon his wife in one of the early scenes 
of the play, will serve to show how little originality 

* Upon this play Michel Baron, the French dramatist, founded 
his comedy of ' L'Andrienne,' the two first acts being little more 
than a translation. Steele's i Conscious Lovers ' is also bor- 
rowed from it. 



112 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 

there is in those conjugal dialogues which have always 
been so popular an ingredient in modern farce. If 
humour of this kind cannot be said to be in the very 
best taste, it may at least claim a high classical an- 
tiquity. 

Laches. Good heavens ! what a strange race these women 
are ! 
They're all in a conspiracy ! all just alike, 
In what they will and what they won't ; not one of 'em 
But sings to the same note ; with one consent 
Each stepmother detests her daughter-in-law, 
Each wife is bound to contradict her husband ; 
There must be some school where they all learn wicked- 
ness ; 
And my own wife must be head-mistress in it. 

Sostrata. Poor me, poor me ! I don't know what I 
am charged with ! 

La. (sneering). Oh ! you don't, don't you ? 

Sos. On my life, dear Laches, 

No — as I hope to live and die with you ! 

La. The gods deliver me from such a prospect ! 

Sos. (sobbing). Well, when I'm gone, you'll know how 
cruel you've been. 

La. Cruel, forsooth ! what words are strong enough 
For your base conduct, madam ? You've disgraced 
Me, and yourself, and all the family ; 
You've ruined your son's happiness — made enemies 
Of our best friends, who gave their daughter to us. 
'Tis you, and only you, have done it all. 

Sos. I ! 

La. Yes, you, madam ! What ! am I a stone ? 

Have I no feelings, think you ? Do you fancy 
Because I am in the country, I don't know 
How you all go on here while I am away ? 
Ay ! better than I know what goes on there. 



THE MOTHER-IN-LAW. 113 

Your conduct, madam, makes me common talk. 
I knew my son's wife hated you — yes, long ago ; 
No wonder — 'twould be a wonder if she didn't. 
Bat that for your sake she had taken a hatred 
To the whole family, — this I did not know. 
Had I only known it, I'd have packed you off, 
And made her stay — I would indeed, my lady ! 
Look how ungrateful, too, is this behaviour ; 
All to please you, I tike a place in the country ; 
1 work like a horse there — more than at my years 
1 ought to do — to keep you here in idleness, 
Spending my money ; 'twas the very least 
You might have done, to keep a quiet house. 

Sos. 'Twas not my fault, indeed, indeed, dear Laches ! 

La. I say it was your fault, and no one else's ; 
You'd nought to do but make things pleasant here ; 
I took all other burdens off your hands. 
Shame ! an old woman like you to go and quarrel 
With a poor girl ! — You'll tell me now, 'twas her fault ? 

JSos. No, no ! dear Laches, I have never said so 

La. Well, I am glad, for my son's sake, you've the grace 
To confess that. You don't much harm yourself 
By the confession ; in your precious character 
A fault or two the more don't make much odds. 

• •••••• 

You mothers never rest until your sons 

Get them a wife ; and then your whole delight 

Is to make mischief between wife and husband. 

Some of tlie scenes in this play are the most 
dramatic of any which have come down to us from 
the author's hands. The grief of the young husband 
when, on his return from a voyage on business, he 
finds that his wife has left his father's roof and gone 
home to her own parents, and when she refuses him an 

a. c. vol XVL H 



114 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 

interview on the plea of illness ; when he believes 
that there is some cause of quarrel which is concealed 
from him between her and his mother, whom he dearly 
loves ; and the struggle between his love for his wife, 
and his sense of what is due to his own honour, when 
he learns the real cause of her withdrawal, are all very 
finely drawn. So are the little passages in which poor 
Sostrata, still believing that the cause of Philumena's 
estrangement is some unaccountable dislike which she 
has taken to herself, though conscious that she has 
done her best to make her a happy home, proposes to 
give up her pleasant town-house and retire into the 
country, and so leave the young pair to themselves. 
Laches himself is touched at last by her simple and 
unselfish goodness ; and though the indications of this 
are slight in the Eoman play, compared with the fuller 
and more gradual development which would be 
thought necessary in a modern comedy, there is in the 
short scene between them a simple pathos which, when 
the characters were played by good actors, no doubt 
touched the feelings of the audience as it was meant 
to do. 

La. Well, well ; we'll go into the country ; there 
You'll have to bear with me, and I with you. 

Sos. (throwing her arms round her husband and sobbing). 
Husband, I hope we may ! 
La. {disengaging himself aivkwardly, and trying to hide 

his emotion). There, there ! — go in ; 
(let ready all you want — I've said the word. 

Sos. I'll do your bidding — aye, and gladly. 

Pamphilus (ivho has entered unperceived). Father ! 

La. Well, Pamphilus, what is it ? 



THE MOTHER-IN-LAW. 115 

Pam. What means this 1 

My mother leave her home 1 It must not be. 

La. Why not ? 

Pam. Because I am not yet resolved 

As to rny wife. 

La. You bring her back, of course. 

Pam. I wish it — it is hard to give her up ; 
But I must do that which I feel is best. 
She and my mother will be friends — apart. 

La. You can't tell that. Besides, what matters it ? 
Your mother will be gone. (Turns away from his son, 

who tries to interrupt him.) We're getting old — 
We're only troublesome to younger folk ; 
We'd best be moving on. (Turning again to Pamphilus 

with a smile.) In short, my boy, 
We're only " the old man and woman," now. 

But everything is made right in the end. Philu- 
mena goes back to her husband a wife without 
reproach, and we are allowed to hope that Laches did 
not wait for Sostrata's death to repent of his injustice 
to her character. The dramatist had not altogether lost 
his pains, if he had done something to qualify the 
"vulgar notion of a " mother-in-law." The play appears 
to have met with no success when first brought out, 
for it has come down to us with a " second prologue," 
written for what seems to have been its third repre- 
sentation, in which the author takes the opportunity 
to remark on its previous failures. He attributes these 
in both cases to the more powerful attractions of the 
rope-dancers and the gladiators. On the second oc- 
casion the audience were so impatient for the appear- 
ance of these latter, that they would not even sit out 
the comedy. 



116 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 



III. THE SELF-TORMENTOR. 

The comedy of ' The Self - Tormentor ' is in great 
measure borrowed, as well as its Greek name of ' Heau- 
ton-tiniorumenos,' from a lost comedy of Menander, of 
which we have but some ten lines. It has very much 
the same kind of dramatis 'personam as the preceding 
play. Two fathers and two sons, — a young lady for 
each, and a scheming slave, devoted to the interests of 
his young master — make up the leading characters. 
Chremes and Menedemus, the fathers, have for the last 
few months been neighbours in the country ; engaged, 
as Roman gentlemen who preferred a country life com- 
monly were, in farming ; an occupation in which it 
must be confessed they were generally much more suc- 
cessful than the average English squire. Chremes has 
noticed that since Menedemus bought his present farm, 
he has worked upon it himself from morning till night, 
as hard as though he were a slave instead of a master ; 
in fact, that he does more work than any of his slaves, 
and that the time which he spends himself in manual 
labour might, so far as the interests of the farm are con- 
cerned, be much more profitably employed in looking 
after them. He has no reason to suppose that his 
neighbour is poor ; and he has a curiosity to learn the 
secret of this " self-tormenting." He succeeds in doing 
so in the opening scene, though not without some diffi- 
culty. Menedemus gruffly expresses his surprise that 
his neighbour should have so much leisure from his 
own affairs as to concern himself about those of others. 



THE SELF-TORMENTOR. 117 

Chremes makes answer in those famous words, which 
can only be inadequately given in any English trans- 
lation ; w r ords at which, as St Augustine tells us, the 
whole audience, though many of them rude and ignor- 
ant, broke out into thunders of applause : — 

" I am a man ; nothing in human life 
Can fail to have its interest for me." * 

Menedemus then tells him that he had once (he almosi 
fears he can no longer say he has) an only son, who 
had fallen in love with a young Corinthian stranger 
of humble fortunes, who had come to Athens (the 
" Maid of Andros/' in fact, under another title), and 
had wished to marry her. The father's pride had re- 
fused to consent \ almost any marriage with a foreigner 
was held, it must be remembered, to be a mesalliance 
for a citizen of Athens. He had spoken harshly to his 
son ; and the young man, not choosing to be so dealt 
with, had entered upon that field of adventure which 
was open in those times to all young men of spirit : 
he had taken service with a body of mercenaries, 
and gone to seek his fortunes in the East. Distracted 
at the consequences of his own severity, and the loss 
of a son whom he deeply loved, Menedemus had sold 
his house in Athens, and retired into the country, de- 
termined to punish himself for what he considers his 
unnatural harshness by a life of rigid asceticism. He 
will live no life of ease after driving his son into exile 
and poverty ; whatever he can save by self-denial shall 

* "Homo sum ; humani nihil a me alienum puto." 



118 THE COMEDIES OL TERENCE. 

be saved for him at his return — if ever that happy day 
should come. 

It comes with the very next scene. Young Clinia 
has returned from the wars, and has just been received 
into the house of Chremes — introduced there by his 
son, Clitipho, who had been an intimate friend of the 
wanderer, though the father does not seem to have been 
aware of it. Clinia has begged his friend to send at 
once to his dear Antiphila, and, — if she has been as 
faithful to him in his absence as he hopes, — to entreat 
her to pay him a visit ii, his temporary domicile. And 
now the complication begins. Syrus, — the slave to 
whom young Clitipho intrusts his friend's errand, his 
confidant in all business, lawful or unlawful — deter- 
mines to take the opportunity of doing his young 
master a special kindness. Clitipho has also, as 
Syrus is well aware, a love affair of his own upon his 
hands, with a very clashing and extravagant lady in- 
deed, to gratify whose expensive tastes in the way of 
presents he has already taxed his father's good-nature 
to the uttermost. Syrus has hit upon the brilliant 
idea of introducing this lady into his master's house- 
hold as a visitor, instead of the modest and quiet 
Antiphila, as the object of Clinia 's affections ; that 
Clitipho may thus enjoy the pleasure of a few days in 
her society. Antiphila meanwhile is sent into the 
ladies' apartments — which were quite distinct from 
the other rooms in the house — there to be entertained 
by Sostrata, Chremes's wife. How Clinia is brought 
to consent to an arrangement which would give 
him very little opportunity for interviews with his 
dear Antiphila — or how husband and wife, in such a 



THE SELF-TORMENTOR. 119 

modest establishment as this seems to have been, could 
each have entertained a young lady guest for some 
days (as seems to have been contemplated by Syrus) 
without each other's knowledge, is not so clear as it might 
be. Eut even on our modern stage we are continually 
obliged, if we go to be amused, to swallow glaring 
improbabilities ; and to expect to criticise the Athenian 
or the Eoman stage by the light of our modern ignor- 
ance, is an occupation, perhaps, more tempting than 
profitable. 

The hospitable Chremes is somewhat astonished at 
the ways of the dashing lady to whom — all to oblige 
his son's friend — he has given shelter. He meets 
Menedemus the next morning, and warns him in a 
friendly way that Clinia's wife that is to be seems an 
extremely fast young person. 

Chr. First, she's brought with her half a score of maids, 
Tricked out, the jades, with gold and jewellery; 
Why, if her lover were an Eastern prince, 
He couldn't stand it — how on earth can you ? 

Men. (mildly) Oh ! is she here, too ? 

Chr. Is she here, do yon ask 1 

{Ironically). Oh yes ! — she's here. There's no doubt as 

to that. 
I know it to my cost. They've had one dinner, 
She and her party. If I give another 
Such as last night, why — I'm a ruined man. 
She's very curious, mind you, as to her wines ; 
Knows the best brands, — and drinks them. " Ha ! ' ; 

she'd say, 
" This wine's not dry enough, old gentleman — 
" Get us some better, there's a dear old soul ! " 
I h^d to tap my oldest casks. My servants 



120 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 

Are driven almost wild. And this, remember, 
Was but one evening. What's your son to do, 
And you, my friend, that will have to keep her always ? 

Men. Let him do what he will : let him take all, 
Spend, squander it upon her ; I'm content, 
So I may keep my son. 

Chremes sees that it is impossible to argue with the 
remorseful father in these first moments of his son's 
return. But it will be a very dangerous thing for 
young Clinia to know that his father is thus offering 
him carte blanche for all his own and his mistress's ex- 
travagances. He therefore begs his friend, instead of 
openly supplying the money, to allow himself to be 
made the victim of a kind of pious fraud. The amount 
of expenditure for the present may not be of so much 
importance, provided the son is not led to believe that 
he has unlimited command of his father's purse. 
Chremes will manage that the supplies required for 
the lady's demands shall be drawn from Menede- 
mus on some specious pretext. He has evidently a 
great fancy for transacting other people's business ; for 
though he has an arbitration case which he ought to 
attend to-day, he will go and have it put off, that he 
may have time to arrange this matter for his friend. 
The nappy father willingly consents, and is all impa- 
tience to be cheated. 

Syrus meanwhile is racking his wits to know how 
he is to get money for his young master to lavish upon 
the extravagant Eacchis. In this mood his elder 
master meets him ; and knowing him to possess the 
talent for intrigue and deception which is common to 
his class, asks his help to impose some tale upon 



THE SELF-TORMEXTOR. 121 

Menedemus — whom lie affects to abase as a covetous 
old wretch " — in order to make him a little more 
liberal to his unfortunate son, whom he has once 
already driven from home by his harshness. " That poor 
young man ought to have had some clever servant," 
snys Chremes, " who would have managed the old 
gentleman for him." Syrus is astonished, as he may 
well be, at such a proposal from such a quarter ; but 
it suits his own purpose exactly. 

Syr. Oh ! I can do it, sir, if you insist — 
I have, methinks, some modest gifts that way. 

Chr. Egad ! so much the better. 

Syr. I'm not used. 

To so much lying — but — — 

Chr. Do it — you'll oblige me. 

Syr. But hark ye, sir, remember this, I pray you ; 
In case — I say in case — men are but men — 
Your son should get in some such scrape hereafter. 

Chr. That case won't happen, I trust. 

Syr. Nay, heavens forefend ! 

I trust so too. Don't think, because I mention it, 
That I have any suspicion — not the slightest; 
But still — he's young, you see — such tilings will happen ; 
And if they should (boiving), I shall know how to act, 
By following your excellent instructions. 

Chr. {laughing). Well, well ; we'll see to that, my 
worthy Syrus, 
When the day comes ; now go about this business. 

[Exit Chr ernes. 

Syr. I vow I never heard my master talk 
More to the purpose — never had I before 
Free leave and licence given to be a rascal ! 

The behaviour of his young guests is somewhat 



122 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 

puzzling to Chremes, though he is quite unsuspicious 
as to the real state of affairs. Clinia and the supposed 
object of his affections conduct their love-passages m 
the most calm and decorous fashion ; but young 
Clitipho, to the great annoyance of his father, who 
understands what is right and proper under such cir- 
cumstances, insists upon thrusting his company upon 
them on all occasions. He naturally grudges his 
friend all the tete-a-tetes with his own beloved Bacchis, 
which his good-natured father is so anxious to secure 
for them. Clinia does not seem to mind these inter- 
ruptions on the part of his friend ; but Chremes is 
indignant at his son's want of ordinary tact and good 
manners, especially as he has detected little acts of 
glaring flirtation between him and Bacchis, which 
seem to imply gross disloyalty to his friend. He 
taxes him with this in an amusing scene, in the 
presence of Syrus, who is much alarmed lest his young 
master's want of self-command should lead to the detec- 
tion of the imposture ; for he, too, has seen him very 
distinctly toying with Bacchis's hand. Both of them 
beg him to go and leave the young couple to themselves. 

Clitipho (helplessly). Where shall I go, sir ? 

Syrus. Go ? why, bless my life, 

Go anywhere — only leave them — go for a walk. 

Clit Where shall I walk to ? 

Syr. Zounds ! why, anywhere — 

There's plenty of walks — go this way — that way — any 
way. 

Chremes. The man's quite right, sir, — go. 

Clit. (moving off gloomily). Well, then — I'm going. 
(Shaking his fist at Syrus as he goes.) 



THE SELF-TORMENTOR. 123 

Devil take you, rascal, for your interference ! 

Syr. {aside to him). You keep your hands to yourself, 
young man, hereafter. {Watching him as he goes 
off with apparent interest, and turning to Chremts.) 
Indeed, sir, he's too bad. "What will he come to ? 
You had best give him very serious warning, 
And keep him tight in hand. 

Chr I will, I will. 

Syr. Before it is too late. 
Chr. I will, I say. 

Syr. I hope you will, sir. As for my advice, 
(Shrugging his shoulders.) He minds it less and less, I 
grieve to say. 

Chremes's wife has meanwhile made the discovery, 
by the common test of a family ring, that the girl 
Antiphila is a long-lost daughter wdiom she had sent 
away immediately after her birth, in obedience to her 
husband's threats that, in case one should be born 
to him, he w r ould never bring up such a troublesome 
addition to his family. This, of course, makes every- 
thing clear for Clinia's marriage with her ; and that 
young gentleman is accordingly made happy, by the 
consent of all parties. But not before the busy Chremes 
has been hoisted with his ow T n petard, by Syrus's 
contrivance. Acting very much upon the principle 
recommended to him by his master himself, the cunning 
rascal has extracted from him fifty pounds as an im- 
aginary ransom for his own daughter Antiphila, whom 
he declares to have been purchased in her infancy by 
Bacchis : and the gold is actually sent to that lady by 
the hands of his own son. There is some complication 
in this part of the plot, fairly amusing as worked out 



124 THE COMEDIES OF TEREXCE. 

in detail in the original, but not worth analysis. It 
is very long before Chremes can be brought to believe 
that it is his own son, and not Clinia, who is the real 
lover of the dashing young lady whom he has been 
entertaining out of complaisance, as he considered, 
to his son's friend. Menedemus, no longer a " self- 
tormentor," is equally gratified to find that, after all, 
he is to have such a modest and highly respectable 
daughter-in-law, and amused at the collapse of his 
scheming friend. 

Menedemus {solus, laughing to himself). 

I don't profess myself to be a genius — 
I'm not so sharp as some folk — that I know : 
But this same Chremes — this my monitor, 
My would-be guide, philosopher, and friend, — 
He beats me hollow. Blockhead, donkey, dolt, 
Fool, leaden-brains, and all those pretty names — • 
They might suit me ; to him they don't apply ; 
His monstrous folly wants a name to itself. 

Poor Chremes grows very crestfallen in the closing 
scenes, when he looks forward to the ruin which his 
son's extravagant tastes, with the fair Bacchis's assist- 
ance, will bring upon him. Menedemus retorts upon 
him his own advice, — not to be too hard upon his 
son — young men will be young men: but Chremes 
fails to take the same philosophical view of his own 
case as he had done of his friend's. He vows at first 
that he will disinherit his young prodigal, and settle 
all his property upon his new-found daughter and her 
husband \ but he is persuaded at last to alter this 
determination. 



THE ETHIOPIAN SLAVE. 125 

Clitipho promises on his part to give up Baccliis 
altogether, and take to wife at once a neighbour's 
daughter, a most unobjectionable young lady — upon 
whom, with the facile affections of such young gentle- 
nen, he seems to have had an eye already. 

IV. THE ETHIOPIAN SLAVE. 

The comedy of 'The Ethiopian Slave,' which is 
partly taken, as the author tells us in his prologue, 
from Menander, introduces to us once more, under 
another name, our old friend Pyrmopolinices of Plau- 
tus. Captain Thraso, who has fought — or who says he 
has fought — under Seleucus in the East, and his toady 
Gnatho, are the most amusing characters in the play. 
The plot is more simple and well-defined than is usual 
in these comedies ; and though it must be modified 
a little to suit either these pages or an English stag**, 
it will not suffer much from such treatment. This 
Thraso, — a rich braggart, who takes Gnatho about with 
him everywhere to act as a kind of echo to his senti- 
. ments and to flatter his vanity, — is one of the suitors 
of a lady named Thais, who prefers a young gentle- 
man named Phsedria, though she does not care to 
discard altogether her rich lover. Poor Phaedria is in 
despair, when the play opens, at having been refused 
admittance when he called on the lady the day befoie, 
because, as he understood, " the Captain " was with 
her. His slave Parmeno, who is much more of a 
philosopher than his master, gives him the very sensi- 
ble advice to keep away altogether for a little while, 
when, if Thais really cares for him, she will soon call 



126 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 

him back. It is advice which he is not very willing to 
follow, until Thais herself entreats him to do some- 
thing of the same kind. She has particular reasons 
at this moment for not wishing to offend the Captain. 
He has just made her a very handsome present, — a 
slave-girl of exceeding beauty. But this is not her 
value in her new owner's eyes. Thais discovers that 
this poor girl, whom the Captain has bought in Caria, 
and brought home with him, was a child whom her 
mother had brought up, and who had been to herself 
as a younger sister. The story was, however, that she 
had been originally stolen by pirates from the coast of 
Attica. Upon her mother's recent death, the brother 
of Thais, intent only upon gain, had sold this girl — 
well-educated and very beautiful — once more into 
slavery ; and so she had come into the hands of Thraso. 
Thais — who, though a heartless flirt of the worst de- 
scription, still has her good points — is anxious to rescue 
her old companion, and, if possible, to restore her to 
her friends, to whom she hopes she has already found 
some clue. She fears that if her military lover believes 
her to prefer Pha3dria — as she assures that young gen- 
tleman she really does — he will break his promise, 
and not give her this girl. Phsedria, who has him- 
self just sent her a present of a pair of Ethiopian 
slaves, consents, under many protests : he will not call 
again " for two whole days : " he will go into the 
country : but Parmeno tells him that he fully believes 
he " will walk back to town in his sleep." The im- 
passioned words in which the lover takes his unwilling 
leave, begging Thais not to forget him when in the 
company of his rival, have always been greatly admired, 



THE ETHIOPIAA SLA VE. 127 

and often, consciously or unconsciously, imitated. 
Addison, in the ' Spectator/ calls them " inimitably 
beautiful : " — 

Be, in his presence, as though absent still ; 
Still love me day and night ; still long for me ; 
Dream of me, miss me, think of me alone ; 
Hope for me, dote on me, be wholly mine, 
My very heart and life, as I am thine. 

— Act i. sc. 2. 

Gnatho is deputed by his magnificent friend to con- 
duct the young slave girl to Thais's house. On the way 
he is met by Parmeno : and even that unimpressible old 
servitor is struck by the girl's wondrous beauty. The 
scene between the two officials of the rival powers is 
very good. 

Gnatho {to himself as Parmeno comes up). Fll have a 
little sport, now, with this knave. 
(Aloud, making a low bote.) My excellent Parmeno, is it 

you ? 
Your most obedient. — How d'ye find yourself ? 
Parmeno {coolly). I hadn't lost mysel£ 
Gna. You never do.* 

Nothing unpleasant in this quarter — eh ? 

{Pointing over his shoulder to Thais s house.) 
Par. There's you. 
Gna. That I can fancy. Nothing else ? 



* This is not the literal joke in the original, hut may serve 
to express it. Colman quotes an illustration of the same kind of 
humour from * The Merry Wives of Windsor : ' — 

" Falstaff. My honest lads, I'll tell you what I am a 1 out. 
Pistol. Two yards, or more." 



128 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE, 

Par. What makes you ask ? 

Gna. You look so glum. 

Par. {sulkily) . Not I. 

Gna. Don't — I can't bear to see it. But this girl, 
{Whispering.) The Captain's present, — what d'ye think 
of her? 

Par. {affecting to eye her carelessly). Oh ! she's not bad. 

Gna. {aside). I've hit my friend on the raw. 

Par. {overhearing him). Oh no, you haven't ! 

Gna. But you must surely think 

That Thais will be pleased with our new offering ? 

Par. You've cut us out, you mean? Well — wait a while; 
Your turn to-day — it may be ours to-morrow. 

Gna. For some six months, I promise you, Parmeno, 
You shall have rest — no running to and fro 
With notes and messages ; no sitting up 
Till late at night to wait for your young master ; 
Isn't that a comfort ? Don't you feel obliged to rue ? 

Par. Oh, vastly ! 

Gna. Well — I like to oblige my friends. 

Par. Quite right. 

Gna. But I detain you — perhaps you've business ? 

Par. Oh, not at all ! 

Gna. Be so good then, if you please, 

To introduce me here — you know the party. 

Par. Oh ! such fine presents introduce themselves — 
They're your credentials. 

Gna. {as the door opens). Could I take a message ? 

[Parmeno makes no reply, and Gnatho goes in with 
the slave-girl. 

Par. {shaking his fist after him). 
Let me but see two days go by, my friend — 
But two short days, I say — and this same door, 
That opens now to your lightest finger-tap, 
You may kick at all day, till you kick your legs off. 

— Act ii. sc. 2. 



THE ETHIOPIAN SLAVE, 129 

As he goes homewards, Parmeno meets the younger 
son of his master's family, — Chaerea, an officer in the 
City Guard. He is in a great state of excitement, 
raving to himself about some young beauty whom he 
had seen in the street on his way from guard, and fol- 
lowed for some time, but has suddenly lost sight of. 
The family servant is in despair, for he knows the tem- 
perament of the young soldier. Phaedria, the elder 
brother, is inflammable enough in such matters; but his 
is mere milk-and-water passion compared with Chorea's. 
It is love at first sight, in his case, with a vengeance. 
He confides his whole story — a very short one — to Par- 
meno ; reminds him of all the tricks they played 
together when he was a boy; how he used to rob the 
housekeeper's room to bring his friend in the servants' 
hall good things for supper : and how Parmeno had 
promised what he would do for him when he grew up to 
be a man. Parmeno, with the usual inclination of his 
class to oblige his young master in such matters, asks 
him some questions about this interesting stranger : and 
from Chaerea' s description of her companions- — Gnatho, 
and a maid-servant — and the fact of her having disap- 
peared somewhere in this little by-street, he comes to 
the conclusion that she can be no other than the beauti- 
ful slave-girl whom he has just seen pass into the house 
of Thais. He begs Chaerea to discontinue his pursuit : 
the object is unworthy of him. But when the young 
officer learns that Parmeno knows who she is, and 
where she is to be found, he becomes still more eager 
in his quest. At last Parmeno suggests a possible 
mode of introduction — if Chaerea likes to black his 
face, and change clothes with the Ethiopian whom his 

A. c. vol. xv i. I 



130 THE COMEDIES OF TEHEXCE. 

brother is going to send as a present to Thais, he, 
Parmeno, who has instructions to convey the pair to 
her house on this very day, will venture to introduce 
Chserea in this disguise. He makes the proposal, as he 
declares, more in jest than earnest: but the young 
man, as may be supposed, catches at it eagerly, and in- 
sists upon it being carried at once into execution. 

The next act of the play opens with a highly 
amusing scene between the Captain and his obsequious 
friend. Thraso wishes to know how the lady has 
received his present. 

Thraso. I say — was Thais very much obliged? 

Gnatho. Immensely. 

Thra. She was really pleased, you think ? 

Gna. Not with the gift so much as that you gave it ; 
; Tis that she's proud of. 

Thra. I've a happy way — 

I don't know how — -but everything I do 
Is well received. 

Gna. I've noticed it myself. 

Thra. Yes. Even the King himself, after an action, 
Would always thank me in person. 'Twas a thing 
He never did to others. 

Gna. Well, with gifts like yours, 

A man gets double credit, while poor souls 
Like us work hard, with nobody to thank us. 

Thra. Egad, you have it ! 

Gra. Ah ! no doubt his Majesty 

Had his eye on you, always. 

Thra. Well— he had. 

I may tell you — I was in all his secrets — 
Had the whole army under me, in fact. 

Gna* {ivith deep interest). No — really ! 



THE ETHIOPIAN SI AVE. 131 

Thra. Yes. And then, when he was tired 

Of seeing people, or grew sick of business, 
And wanted to unbend him, as it were, — 
You understand ? 

Gra. I know — something, you mean, 

In what we call the free-and-easy line ? 

Thra. Just so — he'd ask me to a quiet dinner. 

Gna. Indeed! his Majesty showed fine discernment. 

Thra. That's just the man he is — one in a thousand — 
There are few like him. 

Gna. {aside). Very few, I fancy, 
If he could stand your company.* 

Thraso goes on to rebate to his friend some of the 
excellent jokes which lie made during the time he en- 
joyed this intimacy with royalty ; jokes at which the 
parasite (who was paid for it in good dinners) laughs 
more perhaps than the reader would. Here is a speci- 
men. 

Thraso. Did I ever tell you 

How I touched up the Rhodian once at dinner ? 

Gna. Never ! pray tell me — {aside) for the hundredth 

time. 
Thra. This youth was dining with us ; as it chanced, 

* A fragment preserved by Athenseus from a lost comedy 
of Menander — * The Flatterer' — from which this play is partly 
taken, has the following passage. [Bias is the original of 
Thraso, and Strouthias is his "flatterer."] 

Bias. I have drunk off, in Cappadocia, Strouthias, 
A golden goblet that held full ten quarts — 
And three times filled. 

Strouthias. Why, sir, you must have drunk 

More than the great King Alexander could ! 

Bias. Well — perhaps not less — by Pallas, no ! 

Str, Prodigious ! 



132 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 

There was a lady there, a friend of mine ; 

He made some joke about it ; "What," said I — 

"What, yon young puppy, have you learnt to bark?" 

Gna. {laughing). Ha, ha, — ho, ho ! dear ! 

Thra. You seem amused. 

Gna. {roaring still louder). Oh ! good indeed! delicious ! 
excellent ! 
Nothing can beat it ! — Tell me now, though, really — 
Was that your own ? I thought it had been older ? 

Thra. {somewhat disconcerted). What? — had you heart 7 
it? 

Gna. Often ; why, it's reckoned 

The best thing out. 

Thra. {complacently). It's mine. 

— Act iii. sc. 1. 

The new Ethiopian slave, Phaedria's gift, is intro- 
duced by Parmeno, and even Thraso, who is present, is 
obliged to confess that, black man as he is, he is a very 
good-looking young fellow. Parmeno assures them 
that his person is his least recommendation ; let them 
test his accomplishments in literature, in music, in 
fencing — they will find them such as wall make him a 
most valuable addition to a lady's retinue.* And Par- 
meno hopes that Thais will show a little kindness to 
his young master in return for his well-chosen present ; 
which, however, in the Captain's presence, she will by 
no means profess herself inclined to do. 

But this new servitor soon causes a terrible scandal in 

* " Viola. I'll serve this duke ; 
Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him : 
It may he worth thy pains ; for I can sing, 
And speak to him in many sorts of music." 

— Twelfth Night, act i. sc. 2. 



THE ETHIOPIAN SLAVE. 133 

the household. Before morning it is discovered that 
the fair slave whom.Thraso had so recently presented 
to Thais has eloped with the Ethiopian. The virtuous 
indignation of every waiting-gentlewoman in the estab- 
lishment is roused by such an outrageous breach of all 
the proprieties, and they rush on the stage with 
voluble outcries — " Eloped ! and with a black man ! " 
A friend of Chaerea's has been considerably astonished 
at meeting him hurrying along the street in a strange 
costume and with his face blacked ; but the young 
man makes him his confidant, and obtains from him 
a change of clothes. Phaedria, — who, as his slave 
Parmeno had foretold, has found it impossible to re- 
main even two days in the country away from the 
object of his affections, and who has returned to the 
city and is lingering about Thais's door, — hears the 
story, and goes off to his own house to see if anything 
has been heard there of the fugitives. He finds the 
real Ethiopian hidden there in Chaerea's clothes, and 
hauls him off, under a shower of blows, to be cross- 
examined by Thais and her domestics. Eut they all 
agree that this is not at all like their Ethiopian, who 
was a much better-looking fellow : and Phaedria extracts 
at last from the terrified man that this is some trick, 
which promises to have serious consequences, of his 
madcap brother's. 

The Captain meanwhile has quarrelled with Thais, 
believing that after all she prefers Phaedria to himself ; 
and not altogether satisfied with the private interviews 
which she has lately been holding with a young gentle- 
man from the country — a somewhat rustic sort of per- 
sonage, but whom Thais seems for some reason to treat 



134 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 

with very marked attention. As niggardly as he is 
jealous, Thraso comes to demand back again from his 
lady-love the expensive present he has made to her, — 
this young slave, whom it is not agreeable or convenient, 
for more reasons than one, for Thais to give up. She 
flatly refuses ; and Thraso determines to take her from 
the house by force. The " young man from the country ," 
who is at this moment paying a visit to Thais, is really 
the brother of this girl, who has been stolen in her in- 
fancy; and Thais now calls upon him to stand by her 
in defence of his sister. He would much prefer to go 
and fetch the police ; but there is little time for that, 
for Thraso is seen approaching with a party of followers, 
and Thais, who with all her faults has plenty of spirit, 
barricades her door and defies him. 

The scene must have been sufficiently effective, 
especially if artistically arranged, upon so wide a stage, 
when the gallant Captain leads his forces to the attack. 

Enter Thraso, with his sword drawn, at the head of a 
motley retinue of hangers-on and household slaves. 

Thra. You, Donax, with the crow-bar, lead the centre ; 
Simalio, you command on the left wing ; 
Syriscus, you the right. Bring up the reserve ! 
Where's our lieutenant, Sanga, and his rascals ? 
They can steal anything— from a loaf to a woman. 

Sanga. Here, Captain, here am I ! 

Thra. Why, zounds ! you dolt, 

Have you come out to battle with a dish- clout ? 

San. Brave sir, I knew the mettle of my Captain — 
I knew his gallant men ; this fight, quoth I, 
May not be without blood — I'll stanch the wounds. 

Thra. {looking round doubtfully on his trooj>s). 
Where are the rest of ye ? 



THE ETHIOPIA* SLAVE. 135 

San. Rest ? we're all here-- 

We've only left the scullion to keep house. 

Thra. {to Gnatho). Form them in line ; my post is in 
the rear ; 
Thence will I give command, and rule the fight. 

Gna. {half-aside to the others). Most admirable tactics ! 
we to the front ; 
He takes the rear-guard — to secure retreat. 

Thra. It was the plan great Pyrrhus always practised. 

— Act iv. sc. 7 

Thais soon discovers, as she says, that the champion 
whom she has called, in as her protector has more need of 
a protector himself — for he is a fair match for Thraso in 
cowardice. However, he plucks up spirit enough to 
threaten that gallant officer, from the safe vantage of 
an upper window, with all the terrors of Athenian 
law, if he ventures to lay a hand upon his sister Pam- 
phila — a free-born woman of Athens, as he openly 
asserts her to be ; and since Thraso, somewhat daunted 
by this double peril, confines his hostile operations to 
a battle of words, the lady and her party very naturally 
get the best of it. By the advice of Gnatho — who 
has also more appetite for dinners than for fighting — 
the Captain determines to await the surrender of his 
enemy, which Gnatho assures him will follow next day, 
and withdraws his army ; reminding his lieutenant, 
the cook, that for him, as for all good soldiers, as there 
is a time to fight, so also 

" There is a time to think of hearth and home ; " 

a sentiment which Sanga fully reciprocates — 

" My heart has been in the stew-pan long ago ; " 



136 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 

and which, appealing to their business and their bosoms, 
the whole body cheer vociferously as they move off. 

There is not much worth notice in the comedy after 
this scene. If this girl Pamphila, whom Chserea 
has carried off, is really an Athenian citizen, as she 
is soon proved to be, there is no difficulty as to his 
marrying her, and he does so with his father's full 
consent. Indeed we are allowed to suppose that the 
quiet old gentleman, as well as the trusty Parmeno, 
must have been glad to see such a scapegrace respect- 
ably settled in any way. Phsedria and the Captain are 
left rivals for the good graces of Thais as before, but 
Gnatho contrives to patch up the quarrel between them 
for the present ; doing this good office, as he assures 
them, from the most unimpeachable motives — his own 
personal interest, inasmuch as he hopes to get many a 
dinner from both of them. 

This is said to have been the most popular of all 
the author's productions ; he received for it from the 
zEdiles (who had to provide the dramatic entertain- 
ments for the people) something like sixty pounds. 
Not a large sum, but more, it is said, than had been 
paid for any comedy before. It must be remembered 
that the ancient theatres were open only at festivals, 
for a few days at a time, and therefore no piece could 
have a long "run," as on the modern stage.* 

* Upon this comedy were founded * Le Muet ' of Brueys, 
'L'Eunuque ' of Fontaine, and Sir Charles Sedley's 'Bellamira.' 
It has furnished Shakspeare with a quotation which he puts into 
the mouth of Tranio, in the 'Taming of the Shrew,' act i. sc. 1, — 
" Redime te captum quam queas minimo." Johnson, however, 
thinks that he went no farther for it than Lilly's Grammar. 



piiormio. 137 



V. PHORMIO. 



The play called ' Piiormio ' is taken also from a 
Greek original, not, however, by Menander, but by 
Apollodorns, a prolific writer of the same school. 
Here the principal character is the parasite — Phormio ; 
a fellow with an enormous appetite, consummate im- 
pudence, a keen eye to his own interest, and a not 
over-scrupulous conscience, but by no means a bad 
heart. He and the slave Geta have between them 
all the brains which carry on the plot ; for these gilded 
youth of Athens, who are the lovers in these comedies, 
are not, it will be observed, more largely furnished in 
this particular than their modern successors, and the 
fathers are commonly the easy prey of the adroit and 
unscrupulous slave who — from pure love of mischief, 
it would seem, and often at the risk of his skin — as- 
sists the young heir in his attack upon the paternal 
purse. The respectable victims in this play are two 
brothers — Chremes and Demipho — who have both 
gone abroad on business, and left their sons under the 
guardianship of Geta, the confidential slave of the 
younger brother. Their confidence is not very well 
repaid. The youths give the old man so much trouble, 
that he soon growls tired of asserting an authority 
which in his position he has no means of enforcing ; 
in fact, as he complains in the opening scene, his wards 
lay the whip about his back whenever he interferes. 
He finds it more to his interest to humour them in 
everything to the top of their bent. And it has 
come to this ; that Phsedria, the son of Chremes, has 
taken a fancy to a little music-girl whom he insists on 



138 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 

ransoming from her rascally master, who of course 
raises his price to an exorbitant figure as soon as he 
finds out the young gentleman's infatuation. Antipho, 
his cousin, had for a long time given promise of great 
steadiness : but these still waters run deep, and he 
plunges all at once into a romantic passion for a beauti- 
ful Cinderella, whom he discovers with bare feet and 
in a shabby dress, mourning over a dead mother who 
has left her a portionless orphan. And, finding that 
she is of free birth, he actually marries her. His 
acquaintance Phormio — whose friendship is at any 
young man's service who can give a good dinner — has 
suggested to him a plan by which he may in some 
degree escape his father's anger at this very imprudent 
match. There is a law at Athens which, like the old 
Levitical law, obliges the next of kin who is available 
to rnarry an orpiian of the family. Phormio under- 
takes to appear before the proper court on behalf of 
the girl, and to bring evidence that Antipho is her 
nearest unmarried male relative : and, since the young 
lover of course makes no attempt to disprove it, the 
court gives judgment that he is to make her his wife, 
which he does forthwith. 

All this has taken place before the action of the 
piece begins. And now a letter has arrived from 
Demipho to say that he is coming home, and both the 
son and Geta are in great alarm as to how he will take 
the news which awaits him. Antipho, like others who 
have married in haste, is beginning to feel something 
very like repentance at leisure ; he feels, he says, in 
the position of the man in the proverb who has " got 
a wolf by the ears — he can neither hold her nor let 



PHORMIO. 139 

her go." Geta is conscious that he has no very satis- 
factory account to render of his stewardship, and has 
prophetic visions of the stocks and the mill-prison. 
The son has made up his mind, by Geta's advice, to 
meet his father with something very much like bluster ; 
but the moment the old gentleman makes his actual 
appearance, his courage evaporates, and he makes off, 
leaving his cousin Phsedria, with Geta's assistance, to 
make such apologies on his behalf as they can. 

The father's indignation, though it does not spare 
either Geta or Antipho, is chiefly directed against the 
parasite Phormio, — this disreputable Mentor of youth, 
who has trumped up such an imposture. But Phormio 
is equal to the occasion ; indeed, his nature is rather 
to rejoice in these kind of encounters with his angry 
dupes, in which he feels confident his natural audacity 
and shrewdness will carry him through. " It is a 
tough morsel," he says — drawing his metaphor from 
his familiar sphere of the dinner-table — " but I'll 
make a shift to bolt it." Geta, who regards him with 
a kind of respectful envy, as a knave of higher mark 
than himself, wonders how, considering all the more 
than doubtful transactions he has been engaged in, he 
has hitherto escaped the meshes of the law. 

Phormio. Because, my friend, no fowler spreads his net 
For hawk or kite, or such-like birds of prey ; 
'Tis for the innocent flock, who do no harm ; 
They are fat morsels, full of juice and flavour, 
Well w T orth the catching. Men w T ho've aught to lose, 
Such are in danger from the law ; for me — 
They. know I've nothing. "Nay, but then," you'll say, 
" They'll clap you up in jail." Oh ! will they ? Ah ! 



140 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 

{Laughing and patting himself.) They'd nave to keep me 

— and they know my appetite.* 
No— they're too wise, and not so self-denying. 
As to return me so much good for evil. 

The father has taken the precaution to provide him- 
self with no less than three lawyers to back him in his 
interview with Phormio. It must be remembered that 
all interviews, even of the most private character, 
according to the conventionalities of the classic stage, 
take place in the public street. Should this seem to 
si lock our notions of the fitness of things, we have only 
to remember the absurd anomalies of our own attempts 
at realistic scenery, — where the romantic forest which 
forms the " set " at the back has a boarded floor and a 
row of footlights in the front. Phormio and Geta see 
their adversaries coming round the corner of the street, 
and at once engage in a spirited controversy between 
themselves, purposely intended for the other party to 
overhear. Phormio professes to be shocked at the want 
of common honesty on the part of his friend's father. 
What ! will he really repudiate the connection 1 disown 
his excellent relative Stilpho (which is the name of the 
pretty Phanium's father), merely because he died poor ? 
Well ! what will not avarice lead to ! Geta, like a 
faithful servant, defends the character of his absent 
master : and the pair appear to be coming to actual 
blows on the question, when Demipho steps forward 
and interrupts them. Phormio meets the old gentle- 

* The creditor, both at Athens and at Rome, though he had 
the right to imprison a debtor who failed to pay, was bound to 
maintain him while in confinement. 



PI10RMI0. 141 

man's remonstrances with perfect coolness. It is no 
use to tell him, that a man dues not remember his first 
cousin ; Demipho has evidently a convenient memory. 
If poor old Stilpho had left a large fortune behind 
him, he would have routed out the whole family pedi- 
gree. If he is not satisfied with the award of the 
court, he can appeal, and have the cause tried over 
again. But law, he must remember, is an expensive 
luxury; his own advice would be, that Demipho 
should try to make himself comfortable with his new 
daughter-in-law — who is really a very nice young per- 
son. If he turns her out of his house, he, Phormio, 
as her father's friend, will feel it to be his duty to 
bring an action against him. And so he wishes him a 
very good-morning. 

When Demipho turns to his legal friends for advice, 
he scarcely finds wisdom in the multitude of coun- 
sellors. For these counsellors by no means agree. The 
first delivers it as his opinion that what the son did in 
such a matter, in the absence of the head of the family, 
is void in law. The second holds that the judgment of 
the court cannot now be overruled, and that it would 
not be for Demipho's credit to attempt it. The third, 
the oldest, and as cautious as the most doubting of 
English Lord Chancellors, wishes to take time to con- 
sider. So the client dismisses them, each with their 
fee, declaring that their valuable advice has left him 
more bewildered than ever.* 

* This scene with the three lawyers seems to have given 
Molifere the hint for several scenes in which he has introduced 
legal consultations, — e.g., in ' Le Manage Force,' sc. ix., 
vrhere he makes Sganarelle say, " L'on est aussi savant a la 



112 THE COMEDIES OF TEREXCE. 

Young Phgedria adds to Geta's troubles by coming 
to beg him to extract from his uncle Demipho, by some 
contrivance or other, the sum needful for the purchase 
of his dear music-girl from her master — only a poor hun- 
dred guineas. " She's a very dear bargain/' remarks 
the old servitor. Phaedria insists, of course, that she is 
cheap at any price ; and Geta promises to do his best 
to get the money 

The return of Phsedria's father — Chremes, the elder 
of the two brothers — from the island of Lemnos, 
threatens to complicate matters : but it turns out that 
he brings with him the key to at least the great diffi- 
culty. He has been to the island on some private 
business, the nature of which is known to his brother 
Demipho, but which is kept a strict secret from his 
wife Nausi strata, of whom he stands in considerable 
awe. The secret is partly disclosed in the scene be- 
tween the two brothers on his return. Chremes had 
contracted, in his younger and more imprudent days, 
while visiting Lemnos, a private marriage (under 
another name) with a person in that island, the issue 
of which was a daughter. He had broken off this 
connection for some years ; but the object of this last 
voyage had been to make some inquiries about this 
duplicate family. He has formed a plan, with his 
brother's approval, to marry this unacknowledged 
daughter, now grown up to womanhood, to her cousin 
Antipho ; and is therefore as anxious as his brother 
to get this present unfortunate marriage, which they 
both look upon as contracted under false pretences, 

fin qu'au commencement ; " and in * M. de Ponrceaugnac, 
act ii. sc. 13, where the "Deux Avocats " chant their opinions. 



riioRMio. 113 

annulled if possible. So when Phormio comes and 
offers to take the young lady off everybody's hands 
and marry her himself, if Demipho will give her a 
dowry of a hundred guineas, Chremes persuades his 
brother to close with the offer, and even advances 
great part of the sum : which Phormio hands over 
to his young friend Pheedria for the ransom of his 
mistress. 

Chremes has learned that, while he was on his voyage 
to Lemnos, his deserted wife has meanwhile come over 
to Athens in search of him, and brought the daughter 
with her. He is scon further enlightened upon this 
subject. As he is crossing the street from his own 
house to his brother's, he sees a woman coming from it. 
It is Sophrona, the old nurse of this foreign girl whom 
his nephew has married, and who is now stowed away 
somewhere in her unwilling father-in-law's house. The 
nurse has been there to try to discover what turn 
affairs are likely to take, now that the old gentleman 
has come home. 

Chremes (looking at her stealthily). Eh ! bless me ! 
Yes — or do my eyes deceive nie ? 
Yes — this is certainly my daughter's nurse ! 

Sophrona (to herself, not seeing Chremes). And then, 

to think the father can't be found ! 
Chr. TVhat shall I do ? Shall I speak first, or wait 
Till I hear more / 

Soph. Oh ! if we could but find him, 

All might go well ! 

Chr. {coming forward). 'Tis she, no doubt ; I'll 

speak. 
Soph, (hearing his voice). Who's that ? I heard a voice 
there 1 



144 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE, 

Chr. Sophrona ! 

Soph. He knows my name ! 

Chr. Look at me, Sophrona. 

Soph, {looking close at him). Oh ! gracious heavens ! 
What ! are you Stilpho ? 

Chr. {making signs to her to be silent). No. 

Soph. Can you deny it ? 

Chr. Hush-sh ! come further off ! — 

A little further from the door, good Sophrona — 
And never call me by that name again ! 

Soph. Why, by that name we always knew you ! 

Chr. (pointing to the door opposite). - — Sh ! 

Soph. What makes you afraid of that door ? 

Chr. {coming near her, in a half -whisper). Why, because 
It's got my wife inside — an awful woman ! 
That's w T hy I took another name, you see. 
For fear lest you might blab my real one, 
And she (pointing to the door) should hear it. 

Soph. 'Twas no wonder, then, 

We could hear nothing of you here in Athens. 

— Act v. sc. 1. 

He learns from the old nurse that his Lemnian wife 
is dead, and that his daughter is just married to his 
nephew Antipho. In the bewilderment of the moment 
he fails to identify the fair subject of the lawsuit with 
his own daughter : and perhaps only those who have 
seen this play acted by Westminster scholars can 
appreciate the comic earnestness with which the uncle, 
with his own double relations strong in his mind, and 
fancying that his young nephew is in the same predica- 
ment, asks of Sophrona — 

" What — has he two wives ? " 

When he finds out that the two wives are one and the 



PHORMIO. 145 

same, and that his Lemnian daughter is really married, 
by a happy accident, to the very husband he had designed 
for her, he blesses the gods for his good fortune, and it 
is plain that all Antipho's difficulties are over. 

But Chremes, unluckily, joins his brother in an 
attempt to recover from Phormio the gold pieces which 
he has got from them under pretence of dowry. They 
don't want him to marry Phanium now, of course; and 
they see no reason for his not returning the money. 
But Phormio, with his usual cleverness, has made 
himself master of the whole story. He declares his 
willingness to complete at once his part of the bargain, 
and protests, with considerable show of justice, that he 
will not be cheated out of wife and d^wry too. He 
threatens Chremes that unless he holds his tongue 
about the money, he will tell his wife Nausistrata all 
about that little establishment at Lemnos. This impu- 
dence is more than Demipho can stand, and he calls his 
slaves to carry off the parasite to jail. The noise he 
makes brings in ISausistrata, and though both the 
brothers try to stop his mouth, he carries his threat 
into execution. Nausistrata, of course, is in a con- 
siderable fury at first : but as her rival is dead, and this 
unnecessary daughter safely disposed of, she is satisfied 
with the rod which Phormio has put into her hands to 
be wielded over her husband in any future connubial 
disagreement ; and, partly out of gratitude for this 
acquisition of power, and partly to annoy her husband, 
invites him at once to supper. The parasite foresees 
that there will always be a knife and fork ready for 
him at her table as well as at Phanium's. 

a. c. vol. xvi. K 



146 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 



VI. — THE BROTHERS. 

This comedy, like ' Phormio/ has always been a 
favourite with the Westminster actors. It is taken 
partly from a play of Menander, and partly from one 
by another Greek dramatist, Diphilus. It was acted 
lately at Westminster with great success, and it may 
be permissible to borrow, as a familiar rendering of the 
early portion of the story, a few verses from the clever 
sketch of the " Plot " which was handed round on that 
occasion for the enlightenment of the less classical 
among the audience • — 

" Two brothers once in Athens dwelt of old, 
Though widely did their dispositions differ ; 
One loved the country, was a churl and scold, 
The other bland and gentle as a zephyr. 

Demea, the churl, had once a wife, since dead, 
And, as it seems, he did not much regret her ; 

Micio, the bland, had not been so miss-led, 
And never took a wife, for worse or better. 

Now Demea had two sons ; but he did predicate 
That one was quite enough ; and gave the other — 

The elder of the two — to rear and educate, 
In short, to be adopted, by his brother. 

The youngest, Ctesipho, at home was taught, 
Was duly lectured, disciplined, and scolded ; 

Eose early — read — walked — and, as Demea thought, 
Into a rural innocent was moulded. 



THE BROTHERS. 147 

But Micio loved the city, and, forsooth ! 

Ne'er thought of looking after his adopted ; 
But if he told the truth, and all the truth, 

Whatever prank was played, he never stopped it." 

Demea has protested from time to time against his 
brother's very lax system of discipline ; and when he 
finds that young iEschiims's not very steady course has 
just culminated in a tremendous and notorious row- 
that he has broken open the house of a slave-dealer, 
beaten the master, and carried off a young woman — 
he lectures his brother severely on the results of his 
ill-judged indulgence. 

But Ctesipho, who lias been kept in stricter leading- 
strings by the father, is not quite the pattern youth 
that the old gentleman thinks him. He is really 
the person most concerned in the brawl which caused 
so much scandal ; for the girl who has been thus 
forcibly carried off from her owner is a young music-girl 
with whom he has fallen in love — who claims, however, 
as usual, to be free-born and entitled to all the rights 
of citizenship. iEschinus, not standing so much in 
fear of his good-natured guardian as the other does of 
his father, and having, besides, no great reputation to 
lose, is content to take upon himself all the blame 
of the late burglary and abduction ; though Ctesipho 
has been really the principal in the affair, in which 
his brother has only aided and abetted out of pure 
fraternal affection. There is the usual intriguing 
slave, Syrus, who is of course in the secret ; and w<ho 
persuades the father that Ctesipho is gone down 
to the country grange, whither Demea follows him, 
quite persuaded that he shall find his exemplary son 



148 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 

deep in farming operations. He is, in fact, at this mo- 
ment taking care of his prize in iEschinus's apartments 
in his uncle's house, whither she has been conducted. 

Syrus, delighted to have such an opportunity of 
exercising his wit upon Demea, whose principles of 
education he altogether dislikes, compliments him 
highly upon his son Ctesipho's irreproachable conduct. 
He declares that the good youth has been quite shocked 
at his elder brother's iniquity, and has reproached him 
with the discredit he was bringing on the family. 

Syrus. iEschinus, quoth he, I am ashamed of you — 
You waste not money only, but your life. 

Demea. Heaven bless him ! he'll be worthy of his fore- 
fathers. 

Syr. I'm sure he will. 

Dem. Syrus, he's had good teaching. 

Syr. Ah ! he had those at home who understood it. 

Dem. I do take pains ; I omit no single item : 
I train him well ; in fact, I bid him study, 
As in a mirror, all the characters 
He sees around him, and draw from them lessons 
For his own guidance : copy this, I say — 

Syr. Ah ! capital ! 

Dem. This, again, avoid — 

Syr, Just so. 

Dem. This act, I say, is praiseworthy— 

Syr. Quite right. 

Dem. That was a fault — 

Syr. I see. 

Dem. And then, besides — 

Syr. I beg your pardon — I could listen all day — 
But I'm so busy : there's some splendid fish — 
I must not let them spoil : for this, you see, 
In my vocation, sir, would be a sin, 



THE BROTHERS. 149 

Just as, with gentlefolks, neglect of morals : 

Indeed, in my poor sphere, I train my knaves 

Exactly on your worship's principle. Look here, 

I say, that dish 's too salt ; this roast is burned — 

That's not washed clean ; that fricassee is good — 

Just the right thing — be sure the next is like it. 

The best advice that my poor wit affords 

I strive to give (looking gravely at Demea, and copying 

his manner). In short, I bid them study 
As in a mirror, every dish I make, 
Thus to draw lessons for their own instruction. 
'Tis but a humble school, I feel, I train them in ; 
But we must do our best — man can't do more. — 
{Bowing demurely). Can I oblige you, sir, in any way ? 
Dem. {angrily). Yes — mend your manners.* 

— Act iii. sc. 3. 

The elder of the young men has in truth perplexities 
enough of his own to have justified him, if he had been 
less good-natured, in declining to involve himself in 
those of his brother. He has an unacknowledged wife, 
and just at this time the not very welcome addition 
of a baby. The news of his having been engaged in 
this brawl, and having carried off the singing-girl to 
his uncle's house, soon reaches the ears of Sostrata, 
his very respectable mother-in-law : who comes to the 
natural conclusion that iEschinus is faithless to his 
poor wife at this interesting crisis, and intends to re- 
pudiate her altogether, instead of presenting her to 
his uncle, as he had promised, and obtaining his sanc- 
tion to their public union. By the advice of Geta, an 
old and trusty servant, who has remained with them 
in their reduced fortunes (for there are faithful slaves, 

* Horace had probably this dialogue iu his mind, Sat. I. iv. 103. 



150 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 

in these comedies, as well as the more common type 
of dishonest ones), they lay the case before an old 
friend of the family, the excellent Hegio, who under- 
takes to represent to Micio the great wrong which is 
being done by his ward to his unfortunate young rel- 
ative. On his way to Micio's house he falls in with 
Demea, who is an old acquaintance, and informs him of 
this new enormity on the part of young iEschinus, at 
which the father can only lift up his hands and eyes, 
and lament over this still more convincing proof of the 
sad results of such a training as the youth has had 
from his uncle. 

But on his way to his country-house he meets a 
workman who tells him that his own dear Ctesipho 
has not been seen there since he left. So he goes back 
to make inquiry about him at his brother's, — inquiry 
which, under present circumstances, is somewhat awk- 
ward to meet. Yes, — he has been there, Syrus tells 
him, and points to his own bandaged head as evidence. 
The good youth was so indignant at his brother's con- 
duct that he took him to task roundly, and ended by 
beating the music-wench, and breaking poor Syrus's 
head. "He ought to be ashamed of himself," says 
the latter whimpering, — " a poor old man like me, that 
nursed him ! " — " Not at all," replies the unsympathetic 
Demea ; " 'tis you ought to be ashamed of yourself — 
you nursed his brother in wickedness ! " He next in- 
quires of the slave where his brother Micio is ; for he 
wants to expostulate with him about this unfortunate 
business. He is not at home, Syrus assures him ; but 
he will give him full directions where to find him. 
He must go through the portico behind the shambles, 



TEE BROTHERS. 151 

down the next street, then to the right, then up the 
next, then to the left, past the chapel, through the 
narrow lane where the wild fig-tree stands, straight on 
to Diana's temple, then to the right ; then he will see 
a mill, with a joiners shop opposite, where his "brother 
is gone to order an oak table : and with these very 
particular directions, which will give the old gentle- 
man a good long afternoon's walk through the suburbs, 
he gets rid of him for the present. The two young 
men are in the house all the time, having a little 
dinner in celebration of the successful rescue of Ctesi- 
pho's fair friend ; and Syrus, having got rid, for some 
hours at least, of this inconvenient visitor, will take 
the opportunity of this festive occasion to get royally 
drunk. 

^Eschinus soon learns the misconstruction which has 
been put upon his conduct ; for when he next goes to 
his lodgings to visit his young wife, he is refused ad- 
mittance. !N either she nor her mother will have any- 
thing more to do with such a villain. But in the crisis 
of his distress he is encountered by his good-natured 
guardian, to whom Hegio has told the whole story, and 
who has gone at once to see for himself what kind of 
people these new connections are : and he — after playing 
for a little while with the young man's anxiety — throws 
him at last into ecstasies of joy and gratitude by magna- 
nimously promising to recognise his wife, and desiring 
him to bring her home to his house as soon as he thinks 
proper. 

Demea returns from his long walk in search of his 
brother, very hot and very angry. He has not been 
able to find the "joiner's shop," and half suspects 



152 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 

that Syrus has been fooling him : for he meets Micio 
just coming out of his own house. He attacks him 
with the story of this new escapade of his precious 
ward iEschinus ; but his brother listens with a compo- 
sure which is exceedingly irritating. 

Demea. He's got a wife ! 

Micio. Well — better he than I. 

Dem. She's got a baby ! 

Mic. Doing well, I hope ? 

Dem. The jade's an absolute beggar ! 

Mic. So I hear. 

Dem. You mean you'll take her in without a sixpence / 

Mic. I do. 

Dem. What's to become of them ? 

Mic. Of course 

They must come here. 

Dem. {ironically). Why, you seem quite delighted ! 

Mic. No — not if I could alter it. Look ye, brother, 
Man's life is as it were a game of tables ; 
If that the throw we want will not turn up, 
Skill must correct such luck as fortune gives us. 

—Act iv. sc. 7. 

It is the better side of the Epicurean philosophy, 
put into few and terse words ; and we shall probably 
not be wrong in assuming the lines to be pretty 
closely translated from Menander, who may not impro- 
bably have had the idea from Epicurus himself. 

Another precious example of his brother's domestic 
discipline meets Demea as he comes away from this 
unsatisfactory interview. It is Syrus, so drunk as to 
have lost even the semblance of respectful demeanour. 

Syr. {staggering up against Demea). Oho ! you're back 
again, are you, Mr Wisdom ? 



THE BROTHERS. 153 

Bern, (pushing him away). If you were my slave, 
sirrah — 

Syr. You'd be lucky — 

You'd have a (hiccup) treasure — save you half your income. 

Bern, (shaking his stick at him). I'd make an example 
of ye ! 

(Enter Dromo, another slave, running from the house?) 

Dro. Hallo— Syrus ! 

Ctesipho wants ye ! 

Syr. (aside to him). Hush-sh ! away, you fool ! 

Dem. Ctesipho ! — here ? 

Syr. N-no, n-no, sir ! — it's not him, 

It's — it's — another young man — a little parasite — 
Of the same name. — You know him, don't you, sir ? 

Dem. I very soon will, at any rate (making for the 
house). 

Syr. (trying to hold him back). Stop, sir, stop ! 

But the father has heard enough to open his eyes. 
He rushes in, spite of Syrus's drunken efforts to stop 
him, and makes at last full discovery of how he has 
been deceived. Micio succeeds in soothing him in 
some degree, by assuring him that his own fortune is 
ample enough to supply both the young men's wants ; 
that he will give a dowry also to Ctesipho with his 
beloved, and see him married respectably. 

The failure of his own system, and the placid 
triumph of his easy brother, work an odd transforma- 
tion in Demea's behaviour. He meets this " irony of 
events " by a curious irony of his own. Since easy 
temper is the mode, he will at once adopt it. He 
begins by shaking hands with Syrus, and thanking 
him for his admirable conduct — he will certainly do 
something for him. Then he meets Geta, and shakes 



154 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 

hands with him (who certainly deserves it better) ; he 
will do something for him too. He persuades his 
brother to give Syrus his freedom, with a sum of 
money to set him up in life, " by way of encourage- 
ment to honest servants/' as he ironically puts it. He 
will have him make a deed of gift of a snug farm to 
Hegio, who has acted the part of a good relation so 
manfully ; and he ends by persuading the old bachelor 
himself to marry the excellent Sostrata, his ward's 
mother-in-law — a lone woman, much in want of a pro- 
tector. The good-natured Micio does make some wry 
faces at this last item in the arrangements, but his 
brother's arguments as to the great duty of pleasing 
everybody are too strong for him. If complaisance 
with other people's fancies, and reckless liberality, are 
the right thing, Demea is determined to give his 
brother full opportunity to put in practice this new- 
fangled virtue. 



In obedience to an ordinance contained in the 
Charter of Queen Elizabeth, the Westminster Scholars 
present every year, on three nights just before Christ- 
mas, a Latin play. The performance, which takes 
place in the Dormitory of the College, with appro- 
priate scenery and costume, is perfectly unique of its 
kind, and is the only relic of an ancient custom once 
common to all our great schools. Although, as has al- 
ready been noticed, a comedy of Plautus has occasion- 
ally been selected, Terence has always been the favourite. 
Four of his comedies — 'The Maid of Andros/ 'The 
Ethiopian Slave,' ' Phormio,' and * The Brothers' — 



THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 



155 



are usually taken in rotation ; and a Queen's Scholar 
who shows any dramatic talent is not unfrequently an 
actor in two or three of these plays successively. The 
performance is preceded by a Latin prologue, in which 
such events of the year as have affected the school are 
briefly touched upon : and followed by an epilogue in 
elegiac verse, w T hich of late years has assumed almost 
the dimensions of a farce, in which the current topics 
or follies of the day are satirised under an amusing 
disguise of classical names and associations. 







END OF PLAUTUS AND TERENCE. 




"QSTA^ 



PUBLICATIONS 



J. B. Lippincott & Co., 

715 and 717 Market St., Philadelphia. 



Will be sent to any address ■, postpaid, upon receipt of the price* 



Life of John Adams, Begun by John Quincy 
Adams; completed by Charles Francis Adams. 
vised and Corrected. 2 vols. i6mo. Extra cloth. $3. 



Re- 



" No recent American biography is 
more deserving of careful perusal than 
this." — Natioiial Baptist. 

"It is just such a work as will in- 
terest the student in history, and the 



information it gives concerning the 
events of the early days of our republic 
will make it indispensable in public 
libraries." — Boston Eve. Traveller. 



Seven Decades of the Union. The Humanities and 

Materialism, illustrated by a Memoir of John Tyler, with 
Reminiscences of some of his Great Contemporaries. The 
Transition State of this Nation — its Dangers and their 
Remedy. By Hon. Henry A. Wise. 8vo. Extra cloth. $2. 



" An exceedingly interesting work. 
It abounds in graphic personal sketches 
of a number of distinguished political 
characters, and brings together many 
interesting reminiscences, observations 
and experiences which form a part of 
the history of the country. . . . We 
can recommend it to the public as a 



book in which may be found many 
ideas, much information, numerous 
sketches of distinguished public men . 
and a number of pleasing anecdotes, 
all given with that peculiar dramatic 
power which distinguishes the author." 
— Richmond Whig. 



The History of Florida from its Discovery by Ponce 
de Leon, in 15 12, to the close of the Florida War, in 1842. 
By G. R. Fairbanks. i2mo. Extra cloth. $2.50. 



" It is full of interest from beginning 
to end." — Philadelphia Age. 

" Although great interest has always 
been felt in Florida, from its having 
been the first portion of the United 
States occupied by Europeans, and 
from its association with some of the 
most romantic events in American 
history, Mr. Fairbanks has been the 
first to furnish what could truthfully 
ue called a ' History of Florida.' . . . 



We feel an almost irresistible desire to 
give extracts from the work to our 
readers, but the whole of it is of so ab- 
sorbing interest that we find it difficult 
to make selections, and advise each 
and all to send for a copy of the work. 
The paper and typography are excel- 
lent, and reflect credit upon the enter- 
prise of the publishers." — Tallahassee 
Sentinel. 



PUBLICATIONS OF J. B. LIPPINCOTT <5r> CO. 



The Life of Charles Dickens. By John Forster, 

author of " Life of Goldsmith," " Life of Landor," etc. 
Vol. I., 1812 to 1842. With Two Portraits from Steel and 
Fac-Similes. Second edition. i2mo. Extra cloth. $2. 



"The publication of Mr. Forster's 
* first volume' will almost prove as 
great a surprise to the world as the 
first appearance of the first story which 
won fame for the subject of the biogra- 
phy. . . . Now for the first time we 
seem to have learned the secret of the 
individuality belonging to all of Dick- 
ens's really great novels. ... In all 
the history of literature and of literary 
training there is nothing more touch- 
ing, more interesting and more instruc- 
tive. . . . Mr. Forster's book is sug- 
gestive enough to open a new chapter 
in literary criticism. . . . Whether in 
the way of biography or of criticism, he 
has done his work admirably ; and 
when the book is completed, we shall 
have a Life of Dickens worthy of the 
man and of the enduring creations of 
his brain." — London Daily News. 

"The work could not have been 



entrusted to more loving hands, a more 
genial writer or a more faithful and 
accurate historian. ' ' — Philadelphia 
Evening Bulletin. 

"Of all men living, Mr. Forster 
is the best qualified to be Charles 
Dickens's biographer. " — Philadelphia 
Press. 

" Should the remainder of the work 
equal the first volume in excellence, no 
more satisfactory record of Dickens's 
career can be looked for in our genera- 
tion." — London Standard. 

"The author of this life has fairly 
earned the eulogy which Charles Dick- 
ens bestowed upon him when, years 
ago, he wrote : ' I desire no better as- 
surance fc>r my fame, when my personal 
dustiness shall be past the control of 
my love of order, than such a biogra- 
pher and such a critic." — London 
Morning Post. 



Essays of an Optimist. By John William Kaye, 

F. R. S., author of " History of the War in Afghanistan," 
" Life of Lord Metcalfe," " History of the Sepoy War," 
etc. i6mo. Extra cloth. $1.50. 



" We most sincerely trust that Mr. 
Kaye's book may find its way into 
many an English household. It can- 
not fail to instill lessons of manliness.' 
— Westminster Review. 



" It would be difficult to find a book 
which is more pleasurable and profit- 
able, or which combines in greater de- 
gree good common sense with uncom- 
jnonly good writing." — New York 
Evening Mail. 

Light of the World \ and other Poems and Hymns. 

By Eminent Writers. Beautifully Illustrated. 4to. Super- 
fine paper. Extra cloth, full gilt. $5. 



" We hardly know anything so 
sweet, so devout and so artistically 
perfect as these designs. They enter 
into the soul like a sweet Sabbath 
twilight." — New York Independe7it. 

" It is a quarto volume, exquisite in 
paper, typography and binding, con- 



taining a number of poems of a re- 
ligious character by living English 
poets. Each poem is illustrated, and 
the designs are all very original and 
beautiful. Some of them are worthy 
of being separated and framed. "- 
Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. 



Poems. By Lucy Hamilton Hooper. With a 

Portrait from steel. i2mo. Toned paper. Extra cloth. 
Gilt top. #1.75. 



"Mrs. Hooper has rapidly taken a 
high rank among the poets of America. 
In this volume there is much that as- 



cends to very lofty and noble regions 
of thought and feeling." — Philadel- 
phia Evening Bulletin. 



PUBLICATIONS OF J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 



Life and Writings of Alexander James Dallas. By 
his son, George Mifflin Dallas. 8vo. Extra cloth. 



Uncut edges. $5. 

" This biography will form a valu- 
able addition to the materials for the 
political history of the United States." 
—New York Tribune. 

" An instructive and valuable me- 
moir, to whose merits we cannot do 
justice in one brief article." — Phila- 
delphia Evening Bulletin. 



" This volume is an important con- 
tribution to history, a most interest- 
ing addition to modern biography. It 
is the life of a statesman by a states- 
man."— Philadelphia Age. 

" It is a valuable contribution to 
American political history." — Cincin- 
nati Gazette. 



Life of John J. Crittenden. With Selections from 

his Correspondence and Speeches. Edited by his daughter, 
Mrs. Chapman Coleman. With Two Portraits from Steel. 
Royal 8vo. Toned paper. 

" The history of his life is almost a 
history of the country, and his memoirs 
contains rich material for the student 
of political economy." — Philadelphia 
Evening Bulletin. 

" It is full of instruction to young 
America." — Washington Morning 
Chronicle. 

" Since the Revolutionary period, 
our country has produced no man 
whose civil and political career better 
deserves to be commemorated. 

" This biography of him is by his 
daughter, Mrs. Coleman. It connects 
the events of his life and the letters 
illustrating them by a simple narrative, 
which is always natural and interest- 
ing. His political course and opinions 

Memoir of Ulric Dahlgren. By his Father, Rear- 

Admiral Dahlgren. With Portrait from Steel. i2mo. 
Extra cloth. $1.75. 



Fine cloth. $7.50. 

are stated without comment or illustra- 
tion. In the portraiture of the man 
we believe affection does not exag- 
gerate his merits. Few public men of 
any country have lived so free of just 
reproach. Few have been found so 
uniformly magnanimous and patriotic 
in the whole course of their public 
lives. This edition contains two vol- 
umes in one excellently printed octavo. 
It ought to be in every library, for the 
work covers a long and important 
period of political history, and exhibits 
a character that men of all parties 
agree to honor as a noble example of 
an American patriot and statesman." 
— Philadelphia Age. 



"As an eloquent tribute to one of 
the real heroes of the war it will, we 
are certain, receive a cordial welcome." 
— Philadelphia Evening Telegraph. 



"We heartily recommend it to the 
notice of the reading public." — Wash- 
ington Sunday Gazette. 



Life of George Read, a Signer of the Declaration 

of Independence, with a Selection from his Correspondence, 
and Notices of some of his Contemporaries. By his grand- 
, William T. Read. 8vo. Extra cloth. $4. 



son, 

" The work is enriched by very many 
anecdotes, descriptions and sketches. 
There are many excerpts from recon- 
dite sources, particularly in the chap- 
ters on Congress ; and the whole work 
is one of not less value to the public 
than honor to its subject, and is a great 



commendation to the author. The 
letters form a large part of the whole, 
and express the opinions of contem- 
poraries on men, and questions, and 
eveuts. " — Philadelphia North A meri- 
can. 



PUBLICATIONS OF J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 



The History of Charles the Bold, Duke of Bur- 
gundy. By John Foster Kirk. Complete in Three 
Vols., 8vo. With Portraits and Maps. Price per set: 
Fine cloth, $9 ; Library sheep, $ 1 1 .25. Fine Paper Edition : 
Half vellum, $11.25; Extra cloth, gilt top, $10.50; Half 
calf, neat, $13.50; Half calf, gilt extra, $15. 



" We welcome with genuine pleasure 
a narrative of an important portion of 
history by a countryman of Mr. Pres- 
cott and Mr. Motley, a writer fully en- 
titled to take his place alongside of 
them, and in some respects, perhaps, 
to be preferred to either. . . . His re- 
search seems to be unwearied. . . . 
His narratives of events and his 
general pictures of the time are of a 
very high order ; it would not be going 
too far to say that they are first rate." 
— Edward A . Freeman {the historian 
of the Norman Conquest), in the 
National Review. 

" We have no hesitation in assigning 
to Mr. Kirk's most fascinating narra- 
tive a place with the great achieve- 
ments of genius in the department he 
has chosen to fill. This event among 
historians will be welcomed the world 
o ver. * ' — A tla?itic Monthly. 

" The author will take his stand at 
once among the great writers of his 
land and time." — Dr. R. Shelton 
Mackenzie. 

" Mr. Kirk has produced a work 
which is quite entitled to rank with 
the writings of his two predecessors 
(Prescott and Motley). ... His ex- 
tensive and minute knowledge is the 
learning of a man of vigorous thought, 
accustomed to bring his mind to con- 
sider men and things, not merely as 



they have been written about, but as 
they actually were, in the variety and 
complexity of their real existence. . . . 
His imagination is active and impres- 
sible. . . . The last scenes of this im- 
pressive history, the glee and the mix- 
ture of cunning with shameless candor, 
the subtle play of amusement, anxiety 
and grim hatred in Louis, the sinking 
deeper and deeper into confusion and 
hopelessness of his doomed antagonist, 
the horrors of the Swiss victories, — are 
powerfully told. Perhaps Mr. Kirk 
allows himself sometimes to be carried 
away beyond the gravity of the histor- 
ian into the sentiment and passion 
which properly belong to tragedy. 
But he may plead an excuse in the 
awful character of what he relates, and 
in his thorough comprehension of its 
significance, and his sympathy with its 
solemn and affecting vicissitudes. To 
the last he is equal to the great de- 
mands of his task, and he keeps his 
hold on the attention of his readers 
with unfailing mastery over the story, 
and sustained ability in telling it" — 
Saturday Review. 

" Will unquestionably establish the 
title of Mr. Kirk to an eminent posi- 
tion in the already justly-honored 
school of American historians." — New. 
York Tribune. 



Memoirs of the Life and Services of the Right 
Reverend Alonzo Potter, D.D., LL.D., Bishop of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Pennsyl- 
vania. By M. A. de Wolfe Howe, D.D., Rector of St. 
Luke's Church, Philadelphia. Crown 8vo. Toned paper. 
Extra cloth. $3. 



" His Memoirs have been compiled 
from copious material, collected with 
loving hands, and arranged with good 
taste and wisdom. We commend the 
entire volume to our readers as a 
noble monument to one of the noblest 



men who has ever had his life cast in 
this community, and whose memory is 
still held in grateful esteem by thou- 
sands outside the pale of his own 
church. ' ' — Philadelphia Evening Bui' 
let in. 



PUBLICATIONS OF J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 



Variorum Shakespeare. A New Variorum Edition 
of Shakespeare. Edited by Horace Howard Furness, 
A.M. Vol. I. Romeo and Juliet. 8vo. Superfine toned 
paper. Fine cloth, uncut. $7.50. 



** The publishers will have the sat- 
isfaction of knowing that they have 
given to the world the best edition of 
William Shakespeare. " — Philadelphia 
Press. 

"The admirable scholarship, with 
the sane and delicate critical sense 
which marks this specimen volume of 
a new variorum edition of Shakespeare, 
would make the affectionate study of 
its pages by a young scholar, as far as 
English literature is concerned, almost 
equivalent to a liberal education. 
Rarely has a piece of literary labor 
been issued from the American or 
English press which indicates so pro- 
found a knowledge of the subject, so 
wise and thoughtful an appreciation of 
the necessities of the occasion, and 
such refinement and justness of taste 
in the selection from diverse and re- 



mote quarters of the matter most per- 
tinent to the critical and antiquarian 
points under discussion." — New York 
Tribune. 

" No work has ever been published 
in regard to the great poet more ser- 
viceable or valuable." — New Orleans 
Times. 

" Columns might be written on the 
value of this work to the Shakespear- 
ian student and scholar, but it only be- 
comes necessary to say that it is in- 
valuable." — Boston Evening Trav- 
eller. 

" Mr. Furness will, by the work he 
has thus undertaken, make the whole 
English-speaking race his debtor." — 
Liberal Christian. 

" One of the handsomest books that 
ever came from the American press." 
— Boston Evening Transcript. 



The Life of Henry John Temple \ Lord Palmetston 

With Selections from his Diaries and Correspondence. By 
Rt. Hon. Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, G.C.B., M.P., 
Volumes I. and II. Crown 8vo. Extra cloth. $2.50 a 
volume. 



" Lord Palmerston is, above all his 
contemporaries and immediate pre- 
decessors, fortunate in his biographer." 
— Saturday Review. 

"The illustration which this work 
presents of the political relations of 
Great Britain during an eventful 
period of her history commends it to 
the study of the statesman and the 
diplomatist. . . . Of the higher quali- 
ties of the historical writer Sir Henry 
Bulwer gives eminent proof. He in- 
dulges in no false coloring from party 



bias. His exposition of facts evinces 
an impartial and candid temper. He 
shows no disposition to exalt the 
merits of his subject by inappropriate 
eulogy, or to conceal his defects by 
artful reserve. The temperance of his 
manner betrays a truthful spirit. He 
has evidently aimed at a just por- 
traiture of the energetic English states- 
man, and those who are best ac- 
quainted with his character will proba- 
bly be the last to question its veracity." 
— New York Tribune. 



Poems. By Mrs. Emma M. Bell, A.M. \2mo. 

Extra cloth. $1.50. 



" The reader will find many beauti- 
ful gems scattered through this vol- 



ume. - 
vocate. 



- Pittsburg Christian A d- 



Every-Day Errors of Speech. By L. P. Meredith, 

M.D., D.D.S., author of "The Teeth and How to Save 
Them." i6mo. Cloth. 75 cents. 
"A very useful little manual." — Saturday Evening Gazette, Boston. 



PUBLICATIONS OF J. B. LIPPINCOTT <5r» CO. 



LIPPINCOTrS PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY 

OF 

BIOGRAPHY AND MYTHOLOGY. 

CONTAINING 

MEMOIRS OF THE EMINENT PERSONS OF ALL AGES AND 
COUNTRIES, AND ACCOUNTS OF THE VARIOUS SUB- 
JECTS OF THE NORSE, HINDOO AND CLASSIC 
MYTHOLOGIES, WITH THE PRONUNCIA- 
TION OF THEIR NAMES IN THE 
DIFFERENT LANGUAGES 
IN WHICH THEY 
OCCUR. 

BY J. THOMAS, A.M., M.D. 

Complete in two volumes. Imperial 8vo. Toned paper. 
Price per volume : Fine cloth, $11 ; Sheep, $12; Half Turkey, 
$13.50; Half calf, $15. One- Volume Edition, containing al* 
the matter in the Two- Volume Edition, printed on tinted paper. 
Imperial 8vo. Sheep, library style, $15; Half calf, gilt, extra, 
$iS. 



" Lippincott's Biographical Diction- 
ary, according to the unanimous opin- 
ion of distinguished scholars, is the 
best work of the kind ever published." 
— Philadelphia Ledger. 

" The most comprehensive and val- 
uable work of the kind that has ever 
been attempted. . . . An invaluable 
convenience." — Boston Evening Trav- 
eler. 

" It is of such a final sort of excel- 
lence that it will at once take its 
place as the Biographical Dictionary 
of the future." — Philadelphia Even- 
ing Bulletin. 

" The most valuable contribution to 
lexicography in the English tongue." — 
Cincinnati Gazette. 

"The most satisfactory work of 
reference ever issued from the press." 
— Philadelphia Evening Telegraph. 

"This work presents a very wide 
range of treatment, great compactness 
and perspicuity, wonderful accuracy 
and a typographical execution that is 
absolutely perfect." — NewYork Even- 
ing Post. 

"There is nothing like it in the 
English language. . . . It may be 
fairly esteemed a credit to the age and 

Special circulars, containing a full description of the work, 

with specimen pages, will be sent, post-paid, on application. 



country which have produced it." — 
Philadelphia Press. 

" It is hardly possible to overesti- 
mate the detail, comprehensiveness 
and eclecticism of Dr. Thomas' labors. 
His field is the world, bis epoch all 
past time." — Philadelphia North 
A merican. 

" I find that my high expectations 
of its excellence, founded on my know- 
ledge of the admirable qualifications 
of its editor, are not disappointed. In 
the judicious brevity of its articles, the 
comprehensiveness of its selections of 
topics, the nice exactness in matters of 
orthography and pronunciation, as 
well as for its admirable typography, it 
promises to take a very high place 
among our books of reference. " — Pro- 
fessor Noah Porter. 

" It is universal in facts as in name, 
doing like justice to men prominent 
in science, literature, religion, general 
history, etc. The author knows how 
to put a large number of facts into a 
very small compass, and in a manner 
remarkable for system, fairness, pre- 
cision and easy diction." — Professor 
James D. Dana, MA., LL.D. 



PUBLICATIONS OF J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 



The Science of Wealth. A Manual of Political 

Economy. Embracing the Laws of Trade, Currency and 
Finance. Condensed and arranged for popular reading and 
use as a text-book. By Amasa Walker, LL.D., late Lec- 
turer on Public Economy at Amherst College. Students- 
Edition. l2mo. Extra cloth. $1.50. 

throughout .*' — Springfield Republi- 
can. 



" Our country has produced no work 
on the subject that is better worth 
reading." — The Nation. 

" We strongly recommend the adop- 
tion of Mr. Walker's work as a text- 
book in our colleges all over the coun- 
try. It has every quality to fit it for 
profitable use in instruction." — New 
York Evening Post. 

" The author of this volume has 
made a valuable addition to the Ameri- 
can literature of political economy." — 
North A nterican Review. 

" No book has been published in the 
United States with the same practical 
scope and design. . . . The prac- 
tical aspects of the science prevail 



"In this work Professor Walker 
gives an extraordinary measure of at- 
tention to currency and taxation, which 
he discusses with a ripeness of know- 
ledge azid ability surpassed by no other 
writer on subjects so vitally important 
to the American reader." — New York 
Times. 

" We feel justified, therefore, in say- 
ing that no system of economical 
science known to us is so largely the 
result of a practical acquaintance with 
manufacture, banking and trade as this 
of Mr. Walker's." — Merchant's Mag- 
azine. 



The Coin Book. Comprising a History of Coinage ; 

a synopsis of the Mint Laws of the United States ; Statistics 
of the Coinage from 1792 to 1870 ; List of Current Gold 
and Silver Coins, and their Custom-House Values ; a Dic- 
tionary of all Coins known in Ancient and Modern Times, 
with their Values ; the Gold and Silver Product of each 
State to 1870; List of Works on Coinage; the Daily Price 
of Gold from 1862 to 1 87 1. With Engravings of the 
Principal Coins. 8vo. Extra cloth. $2.50. 

*' It is a most valuable contribution I work deserves a place in every mer- 
to numismatics." — Philadelphia Age. | chant's office and on every banker*! 
"Full, thorough and complete, this ' table." — New Orleans Times. 

On Representative Government and Personal Rep- 

resentation, based upon Thomas Hare's Treatise, entitled 
" The Election of Representatives, Parliamentary and Muni- 
cipal." By Simon Sterne. i2mo. Extra cloth. $1.75. 

"There is no man in the United 
States more capable of discussing the 
question of representation than Mr. 
Sterne. It has been a life-long study 
with him, and he has a keen and dis- 
criminating intellect that seizes at once 
upon the strong points of a system, 
and reduces it, by a clear and careful 



analysis, to the comprehension of 
others." — New York Commercia. 
A dvertiser. 

"This volume, both in style and 
matter, is eminently worthy of the 
great subject to which it is devoted.' 
— New York Times. 



PUBLICATIONS OF J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 



A. LIBRARY IN" ITSELF, 



THE REVISED EDITION 

OF 

CHAMBERS'S ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

A Dictionary of Universal Knowledge for the People. 

Reissue of 1870-71, with Maps, Plates and Engravings. Com- 
plete in 80 Parts, making 10 vols, of 832 pages each. Profusely 
Illustrated with about Four Thousand Engravings and Forty 
Maps, together with a Series of from Eighty to One Hundred Ele- 
gantly Engraved Plates — descriptive of the Subjects of Natural 
History — now for the first time appearing in the work. Price 
per Part, including Maps and Illustrations, 60 cents. Price per 
volume: Extra cloth, beveled boards, $5.50; Library sheep, 
marbled edges, $6; Half Turkey morocco, $6.50; Half Turkey 
Roxb., gilt top, $7 ; Half calf, gilt extra, marbled edges, $7.50; 
Half Russia, red edges, $8 ; Turkey antique, gilt edges, $9.50. 



FOR THE GENERAL READ- 
ER. — " Upon its literary merits," says 
Dr. R. Shelton Mackenzie, "its com- 
pleteness and accuracy, and the ex- 
tent and variety of its information, 
there can be only one opinion. The 
work is worthy of the high aim and 
established reputation of its projectors. 
Art and science, theology and juris- 
prudence, natural history and meta- 
physics, topography and geography, 
medicine and antiquities, biography 
and belles-lettres, are all discussed 
here, not in long treatises, but to an 
extent sufficient to give requisite in- 
formation at a glance, as it were. 
Sometimes, when the subject justifies 
it, more minute details are given. . . . 
Its fullness upon American subjects 
ought to recommend it, especially in 
this country ; and its low price makes 
it one of the cheapest and most acces- 
sible works ever published." 

FOR THE FAMILY.— Says the 
Rev. Dr. Finney, late President of 
Oberlin College, Ohio, "Chambers's 
Encyclopaedia should find a place in 
every family. Should families deny 

This edition will be sold only by agents 



themselves in other things, and obtain 
and study such works, they would find 
themselves mentally much enriched." 

FOR TEACHERS, who are fre- 
quently called upon to give succinct 
explanations of topics in the various 
branches of education, often beyond 
the mere outline of information con- 
tained in the text-books, no other work 
will be found so useful, while the con- 
ciseness of the several articles has 
made it practicable to bring the whole 
work within the compass of a few vol- 
umes, which are afforded at a small 
cost compared with others of its class. 

FOR SCHOOL LIBRARIES the 
work is peculiarly fitted, owing to its 
adaptation, as a "Dictionary of Uni- 
versal Knowledge," to the wants of 
both teachers and pupils. Says the 
Rev. Dr. S. K. Talmage, President of 
Oglethorpe University, Ga., " I have 
no hesitation in saying that the friends 
of education will do injustice to them- 
selves, and to the cause of literature, 
science and general knowledge, if they 
fail to reward the enterprising pub- 
lishers with a liberal patronage." 

Descriptive cir- 



culars furnished on application. Copies will be sent, free of car- 
riage, to any address in the United States, upon receipt of the 
pri^e^y the publishers. 



^ V 



'!«*>>♦• 




* 






m 

Irl ilr 



